


Lukano

by bathroom_mirror



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Minecraft: Story Mode - Fandom
Genre: Break Up, Character Death, Coercion, Confessions, Demonic Possession, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Illness, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Manipulation, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Murder, Possession, Redemption, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Time Loop, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21767929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bathroom_mirror/pseuds/bathroom_mirror
Summary: Beneath the welcome noise, he hears her murmur wistfully, entranced by the colors and the temporary relief, “They never stop being beautiful.”He isn’t inclined to disagree.===The same eight months repeat on loop, and Aiden isn't the only player to the game.
Relationships: Aiden/Jesse (Minecraft), Jesse/Aiden (Minecraft)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 18





	1. the description at the back of the box lied

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WinslowButGreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinslowButGreen/gifts), [AProblematicWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AProblematicWriter/gifts), [zomb_ie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zomb_ie/gifts).



> hi good morning first of all, i apologize in advance this pacing is MMMMMMMMMM  
> second im gifting this to u three bec ur gremlins merry christmas friends
> 
> additional context:  
> aiden had a dog, his name was boris and he died in a flood years before mcsm s1 started okok

**an apple fell from the tree, and upon impact it broke into two**

* * *

For some reason, Aiden couldn’t remember if their group had won or lost the building competition.

As he stands in the auditorium with the crowd, he could barely listen to Gabriel’s speech as his thoughts completely take over his mind, fuzzy memories that he can barely comprehend replaying in his head. His friends were- where were they?  
  
He looks around the crowd, cramped, full of faceless figures; blending together in a haze.

His brows furrow.

Was he hurting?

“These people were promised greatness, and I’m ready to deliver!” he hears. It seemed far away, muffled by an unidentifiable mass. Wasn’t it just onstage? Come to think of it, it didn’t sound like Gabriel at all.

(Where were the others? Maya? Gill? Lukas?)

“IVOR! NO!”

Aiden barely realized that somebody had yelled before the stage exploded, pushing everybody to their backs. He’d fallen to the farther corners of the auditorium, but he wasted no time in getting on his feet and sprinting as far out of there as he could the moment he laid eyes on the Wither rising.

All he could do was run.

It wasn’t out of selfishness, it wasn’t out of arrogance; Aiden genuinely couldn’t focus on anything, taken over completely by mind-numbing fear. Lukas, Maya, Gill; they didn’t manifest fully in his mind until he managed to stop and breathe at a stall momentarily. When he was forced to run again as the thing clouding his head burst out of the auditorium in a dark, dizzying cloud, he thought he caught glimpses of them that he automatically thought, “Are they okay?” “I have to get to them.” “We have to stick together.”

But he’d lost them in the forest fire.

He remembers seeing Lukas and Petra and that group Olivia always hung out with, but he couldn’t get to any of them. The fire spreading and causing trees to topple over, the tentacles of the enormous, monstrous beast swinging around carelessly, had isolated him from them as he tried to dodge and run and stay alive.

That was all he could do. Just run.

By then, Aiden had completely lost track of time.

As he wandered aimlessly, he never stopped thinking about his friends, about Lukas. Where could they be? Are they okay? He’d thought about looking for them himself, but where would he even start? The lone man thought of retracing his steps, but he was so far away from anything familiar, he had no idea where he was. And even then, the Witherstorm had probably already eaten everything up. He’d seen the people, the buildings, the builds, being taken by the tractor beam and transformed into shadow-less darkness that melted with the monster’s body. It was terrifying.

“Eaten everything up.”

Aiden froze in his steps and stared at nothing in horror.

“Our house is gone, isn’t it?”

Their house. His and Lukas’, their whole group’s. Their home. All their mementos, all their belongings-

**_Boris’ things_ **

-gone. Just like that.

There were a few hours or so that comprised entirely of Aiden sitting under a tree, curled up in a ball, tired, scared, and grieving.

(His dog died because Aiden couldn’t catch up to him to stop him from jumping into the flood. Would his friends die too because he didn’t find them in time?)

His breath hitched and he didn’t even realize he was crying.

Some time later, Aiden finally stood up, though he was still aching. He wouldn’t disclose to himself why he stood, why he insisted on going; and he refused to think about anything at all.

(Aiden didn’t know if he lost or gained hope.)

He had no idea when it was that he arrived at an empty village, still somehow not eaten up by the Witherstorm. It was void of any life, all the villagers, he assumed, having evacuated a long while ago. Plenty of resources were left behind, and Aiden barely hesitated in taking food and materials from the chests.

Replenishing his health and eating a steak, Aiden only realized then that he felt ill.

Uncomfortable.

He felt like something was wrong. He felt a pull, a call, a cry for help, but he had no idea what or where the source even was. Yet, it nagged at him; it had been the entire time. He mistook it for fear, but this feeling was far more than that.

Initially, he chalked it up to being alone, not knowing where his friends were; but he’d been plagued by thoughts about them ever since he managed to catch his breath, and he didn’t even realize that pit in his chest then. So what was it?

Aiden couldn’t come up with any answers, so he did what he always did best: he avoided it.

* * *

Aiden woke up to the sound of the growls that have branded themselves into his mind, made him react immediately with a jolt that ran through him. He felt the noise in his bones, shrivel up his skin and grab at his eyes.

He yelped as he woke up. The earth trembled beneath him, the air heavy still as it rushed through him, blowing the trees violently and threatening to uproot them. 

The pull inside of him became stronger. The cries were louder.

It was irresistible.

It pulled him out of the village to the edge of the cliff, and he followed it, even if his whole body ached and thrummed with foggy nausea. Reaching the outside, he was greeted by a bright flash of white light, and a shockwave that pushed him back to a house, his head hitting the wall hard.

A hum of pain came in waves, rippling from the back of his head and washing over the rest of his body, making him stumble as he tried to walk.

The pull was at its strongest, calling for him to come to the wreckage that was the Wither Storm’s corpse. So he did, even if it was painful for him, even if the rotting smell of black blood permeated the air. He ambled through the bushes and the trees until he arrived at the corpse site. Huge tentacles now lying limp surrounded him. They were meaty, seemed to be made of stone or obsidian, hard to the touch and with a rough, rocky texture; yet somehow still moist with a thick, black slick that made Aiden recoil in disgust.

Still, despite the gross environment, he pushed through and stepped over the dead remnants. He looked and searched, still not knowing exactly what for.

He thought he had found his answer when he found Gill, and when Maya found them both, but still he felt like something was off, something was missing; even as they searched for Lukas, then had to run away from the revived storm.

Confusion and fear and relief clouded his mind, then, and he became too busy fussing over his friends and cherishing the reunion to think too hard on it.

Like everything else, it came back to bite him hard.

* * *

Aiden died with the Witherstorm.

Its death wasn’t just when the Command Block, its heart, was destroyed. No, its death was slow and agonizing, and Aiden felt every second of it.

It first started with the killing blow. A sharp cut right into the fracture, tearing it to pieces. He felt it in his own heart first, the blade digging itself into him, sending shockwaves of sharp, stinging pain through his whole body. The ache soon followed, an amorphous shape made of screams and incomprehensible, garbled noise; and he felt it everywhere, inside and out. His eyes hurt, he felt like something was lodged in his throat, he felt like he was being gagged, he felt like something was crushing his brain - his mind - and refusing to let go.

Then it fell apart. That came right after its heart shattered, when the physical body no longer had strings to keep it together, and the flying beast was now subjected to gravity, falling lifelessly to the stone floor of Soren’s fortress. He felt the crash, the fall, the breaking of the bones and the splatter of blood and loose muscle. He fell over and cried out in pain, his knees weak and giving away as he felt his limbs become entangled in and squeezed by coils of pain. A black and purple hurting that grasped his heart with a prismarine fist and never let go.

It subjected him to an intangible wither.

The final stage of its death was its decay. The shadow matter it was made up of, the melted obsidian, had dispersed among the atoms of the world, the atmosphere, and returned to its original state. It seeped into the cracks of the bedrock and sprung anew. Dirt, wood, stone, lava, water- it reformed. It reshaped itself, a sedimentary lifeform reverting to an igneous state, now no longer bound by the heart, the Command Block.

By then, Aiden could barely feel. He was drained and limp, lacking any willpower to even move, let alone _think_. He could barely form a coherent thought, everything to him now just shapes and colors with superficial definitions he couldn’t devote the energy to decipher. The sounds around him were muffled and so far away, like a noise in another room several doors from him; blasting a song that couldn’t penetrate the soundproof walls.

As far as he knew, he lay in nothing. His soul was left alone, now a mere fraction struggling to power its own body and consciousness.

Gill and Maya told him he couldn’t stop screaming.

…

…

When Aiden woke up, Lukas was at his bedside, and he felt like he was in a dream.

“Lukas?” He croaked weakly, all that he could say despite the indescribable relief that washed over him. The man smiled and squeezed his hand. Aiden let out a choked laugh. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. How are you feeling?”

Aiden gave himself a mental once-over and sighed, laying his head back on the pillow behind him. “Perishing.”

Lukas chuckled. “At least you’re in one piece, man.”

At this, Aiden didn’t dare resist the emotions that returned to him, vague memories of being worried sick over Lukas and Maya and Gill during the days of the storm. They manifested into tears that blurred his vision.

“I love you, Lukas,” was all he managed to say, a mere murmur as his consciousness died out once more, keeping him from seeing Lukas frown and look the other way.

The man retracted his hand slowly and left the room without another word.

* * *

Try as he might, Aiden couldn’t do much to help with repairs.

At best, he could do 2 hours of work before he got too tired to do anything, an exhaustion that not even a 30 minute merienda or break would help. Eating by itself already became a chore for him, drinking much the same. Several times he’s had to resist the urge to vomit, and when he couldn’t he had to run and could only make it so far before he embarrassed himself and inconvenienced everyone around him with a day's worth of food spilling on the ground.

Most of the time post-Witherstorm, he’d just been trying to recover.

“Don’t worry about it, Aiden,” Lukas said to him with a brief pat on the back. “You’re sick, nobody can help that.”

He did most of the work sitting down, or being checked on by Villager doctors, then being let go because none of them could figure out what was wrong with him.

As he took materials from the chest next to him to craft and set them on the table, he caught sight of Lukas faraway, by some scaffolding for the massive shelter that was being built for everyone. He was going to wave and greet him, but he stopped; not because he might make a noise, but because he saw him with Jesse.

This wouldn’t bother him. This normally wouldn’t bother him because Lukas was always the kind of guy who tried to be friends with everyone, and Aiden could barely count on two hands how many times Lukas tried to convince him to stop getting up in people’s faces (which he liked to think he had a good enough excuse for).

No, this encounter he was witnessing bothered him because Lukas didn’t seem like he was being friendly, he seemed _flirty_. The same kind of acting he recognized from whenever Lukas was with him, whenever the man teased him and made love to him.

Was he being petty about this? Yes, but he’s petty about everything. And Aiden thought he had a reasonable pettiness for this when Lukas was his boyfriend.

He felt his heart sink into a dark pit.

He knew from being caught up that Lukas ended up going with Olivia’s friends and Petra to take down the Witherstorm, and he barely cared about the details because he was just glad to know that the man he loved was safe, and he was proud of him for what he accomplished. But seeing what he did now, Aiden couldn’t stop himself from wondering.

Had he fallen out of love?

Aiden felt himself go limp.

He looked away from the spectacle and down at his hands, his focus eventually giving way to a mindless stare into space.

The man continued the work for today lifelessly.

* * *

“Lukas, where are you going?”

His boyfriend stood there, in their bedroom. He still wore the same clothes as the day the Witherstorm was first unleashed, though they were cleaner now; the striped shirt he’d gotten when they went out shopping one day, the leather jacket they all made together as a group, and his hair still styled in his ridiculously meticulous fashion. Walking in their room, he wouldn’t have thought anything was different today. Of course Lukas would be in the same clothes, they were on a shortage after their homes were destroyed in the storm; but it was the bag in Lukas’s hand that made Aiden’s heart drop.

In those few seconds, he’d have thought everything was okay, his anxiety was just getting to him again, Lukas was probably just running an errand.

But those were few, fast, small seconds within agonizingly slow minutes.

“I have to go, Aiden,” he said, slowly yet far too quickly. He looked away, eyes pointedly keeping at everything but the man at the door. Before Aiden could even get a word out, could even ask why, Lukas continued in a hurry with rushed words. “We just- don’t work together anymore.”

As if whatever sickness had taken hold of him since the Witherstorm hadn’t done enough, Aiden felt like he’d been hollowed out. The sinking feeling latched onto him once more.

“Lukas-”

But he interrupted him, “Look, I’m laying it straight okay? I'm breaking up with you,” he said in a frustrated rush. He let out a ragged breath, “I’m breaking up with you, I don’t love you anymore, and I’m leaving the Ocelots.”

The moment each word was spoken, as it hit him, Aiden felt a piece of him break in a way he didn’t even know could.

(As if he wasn’t already broken.)

“Goodbye, Aiden,” was the last thing Lukas said to him.

Everything was a blur, hazy and indescribable, just moving, lineless images flying past him with noises too loud for him to understand.

“Guys?”

Gill entered the house, oblivious as to what had transpired.

“Lukas just left, is he-?”

He trailed off as he took in what he’d come home to: both of his friends stunned, shellshocked, and quiet.

No matter how much any of them hoped for the opposite to be true, their heads made sure that reality made itself crystal clear to them in every waking moment.

* * *

Aiden did nothing as Maya screamed into the abyss, in her bedroom, just down the corridor. He sat in the kitchen, hunched over a mug of hot chocolate that had gone cold; and Gill lay still, noiseless, on the couch, clutching a pillow.

Lukas had left them.

It wasn’t like they lost him in the Witherstorm event, he didn’t _die_.

He just _left_.

Perhaps Aiden should have seen this coming. And he did, in a way.

He wondered, as he stared into the dark chocolate; if he talked to Lukas earlier, would things have been different? If he talked to him about his concerns and his feelings, as his boyfriend, as his friend; would things stay the same? Would Lukas have stayed?

Aiden didn’t want to face the gnawing inside of him that said bitterly, “No, he wouldn’t have. He’d have left us anyway.”

He twitched and his breath trembled with him. The young man didn’t even realize that he started crying until he sniffled and audibly gasped for breath, prompting his friend within earshot to come to him with a gentle hand on his back.

“Aiden?”

He broke down.

* * *

Everything scared Aiden today.

He was scared because Lukas had up and left him without much explanation. He was scared because he felt like he wasn’t the only person who’s left him recently, that somebody else was gone and _they_ were why he’s been so sick. He was scared because none of that made any logical sense, but a feeling in his heart told him that that was exactly it.

He was scared because nothing made any sense.

He was scared because he was losing everything and he couldn’t care less.

If he didn’t feel hollow and void before, he did now. He felt purposeless, with no direction or goal in sight, no reason to stay alive. Maya and Gill weren’t of much help in these regards, just as hopeless and confused on what to do as he was.

Aiden stood in front of the bar he remembered Lukas frequenting before. Somehow it was untouched by the storm, miles away from the town where everything had started. Other places were the same too, still up and running and largely unaffected by the catastrophe that occurred no more than a year prior. Intact at the other side of the globe.

Thinking about that frustrated him to no end.

(How could they? How could the Witherstorm completely destroy this huge fraction of the Earth, and every other place could care less? How could anybody have a remotely normal life after everything?

How could the Witherstorm take everything from him and not them?

It felt so unfair.)

It felt so unfair as he tried to get groceries and heard every stranger he passed by gushing over the New Order of the Stone. It felt so unfair as he looked at his Ocelors jacket and recalled the building competitions. It felt so unfair as he thought about the illness he’d been afflicted with this whole time, about the first Order’s lie that started everything.

They _lied_. They _lied_ and they became heroes and their hubris and undeserving fame caused the Witherstorm. If it weren’t for their lies, Aiden’s and several other peoples’ homes wouldn’t be destroyed. If it weren’t for the storm, the New Order wouldn’t have any reason to exist. If it weren’t for the storm and the Order’s lies and Olivia’s stupid group, Lukas wouldn’t have fallen out of love with him and left him.

It wasn’t fair.

He tried to drown it all and move on by having a drink or two. If he could pretend that nothing had happened, that nothing had changed, as if there was nobody to miss, maybe he could move on.

But he was staring at the same first drink and remembering Lukas, and hearing patrons around him talk about this hot new “New Order of the Stone.”

(‘Still not a creative name,’ he thinks with a roll of his eyes.)

“This is old news at this point,” a woman beside him says passive-aggressively. He can’t help the bitter chuckle that escaped him.

“Can’t disagree.”

The woman mirrors his reaction as she took another sip of her drink, her twin-tails dragging behind her.

“I’ll give you something different. Something hot and new?” She tilted her head towards him and smirked. “Have you heard of something called the Eversource?”

The woman scared Aiden, as did his eagerness to hear more, and his excitable thoughts of getting back at Lukas for what he did.

But Aiden was never good at stopping himself from reacting, be it in envy or fear. If he wanted something done, barely anything could stop him, especially if it was impulsive.

And anything that could was long gone.

“You guys wanna go back to some competition?” He asked Gill and Maya one day. “For old times’ sake?”

There didn’t need to be much explaining for the both of them to know what he meant.

It wasn’t like he could, anyway, because both his remaining friends were eager and quick to say, “Yes!”

* * *

Burning a city tore him apart and exhilarated him.

Pushing Lukas into the void was thrilling, and it screamed over the silent inklings of regret and the guilt.

Building that narrow, fragile ledge, and standing on the slippery cobblestone, made him feel calm and at peace; even as he yelled and screamed and everything hurt.

Everything scared Aiden and that was all his fault.

* * *

So far in his time in prison, Aiden had contracted many a-disease, plenty of times. None of them were ever actually cured, which only exacerbated his pre-existing sickness.

After Sky City, he felt more unwell than he did before, all his energy drained after being devoted to his impulsive hate and envy and fear. It felt like some sort of parasite was eating at him from the inside-out. He could imagine it: teeth forming from his spine and chomping on everything in its way, tearing through muscles and intestines, blood dripping from the tips with torn arteries and veins.

(It wasn’t like he had to have a shortage of nightmares, right?)

Aiden laughed to himself bitterly.

“Aiden?”

He struggled to move his head to get closer to the bars, to the wall separating him from his friend.

“You okay, dude?” Gill asked. His voice was low and soft, and _dammit_ , Aiden could hear the hopelessness there, too. It was catching up to his friend quicker than he liked.

“No,” Aiden replied weakly. He didn’t know he was letting out tears until they trailed down his face, over his nose and his other eye and finally landing on the soil.

Gill hummed. “I’m sorry.”

The ex-leader found that he didn’t need to steady his breathing, as it already was; he was calm as ever, even if he was deathly ill; even if he was crying.

In a way, that horrified him.

“It’s not your fault,” Aiden sobs. Gill says nothing to respond, because they both knew the truth.

...

Hours later, around midnight, Aiden’s sickness let him go, and his eyes finally rested, closed.

The prisoner of that cell never woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> insert elmo shrug gif here


	2. she was so good at it she had to teach you your own job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~i cant think of anything to say bec im too hungry do you think thats an excuse to get chips~~  
>  i got mcdo
> 
> Additional additional context:  
> aiden was a theater kid n so was gill u cant convince me otherwise

**abandoned at the airport while the other half took off,**

**waiting for her to come back,**

**waiting in the in-between**

* * *

When he woke up, he thought he was dreaming. He thought that he was just in a hyper-realistic dream that would just kick him in the ass when he inevitably woke up from it and be disappointed by the reality he brought upon himself.

But that wasn’t the case at all, and he was between disappointment and relief when he realized that.

When Aiden woke up, it wasn’t in an unbearable environment. He felt comfortable and even _clean_ , the first he’s ever felt either of those things in a long while. The air of the room wasn’t too hot nor too cold; just enough to leave him an excuse to have a leg and-or most of his body without a blanket.

Or just for the man sleeping beside him to curl up and keep most of the blanket for himself.

The thought had formed fully in his head, the words hitting him like a truck, and he inhaled sharply. He bolted upwards, breathing heavily, looking around him in a frenzy. Framed photos, fairy lights, bookshelves, sunlight streaming through the curtains- and a blonde man in pajamas lying next to him, stirring in his sleep.

His heart leapt in his throat, his chest tightened, and his eyes watered with tears. He didn’t realize he’d breathed the man’s name in a desperate whisper until said man turned fully to him, half-lidded eyes looking up at him sleepily.

“Aid..”

Lukas mumbled as he reached a hand to Aiden and held him comfortingly, (a sensation he hadn’t had in a long time,) “Is everything okay?

Tears fell without care from his eyes as he stared, shellshocked, at the man with him, comforting him. Lukas got up in a hurry at seeing his boyfriend cry, and very soon he sat next to him on the bed. “Aid? What’s wrong?”

Aiden trembled where he sat, prompting his then-boyfriend to inch closer and wrap an arm around him, rub circles comfortingly and shush him gently. By then, he couldn’t resist the urge, and he enveloped Lukas in a hug as he cried.

“It’s okay, Aid,” the man said lovingly through his drowsiness. “It’s okay.”

(He was so oblivious.)

“I love you.”

Aiden broke into terrified sobs the moment he heard those words.

* * *

He didn’t notice that Lukas had been calling his name until he shook him lightly.

“Aiden?” His former boyfriend looked up at him with concerned eyes, “Are you okay?”

All it took was one beat to say, “No,” too quickly; quick enough for him to backtrack in stutters, unsure and confused on what to do.

Lukas - _damn_ Lukas, whose brows furrowed as he held and rubbed Aiden’s arm gently. “Do you wanna skip the competition?”

(‘Damn him,’ Aiden swore internally. These were the kinds of things that made him fall in love with the man in the first place.)

He seemed to constantly forget every minute that today was the competition. That he wasn’t in prison, that he wasn’t sick, that for some reason Lukas didn’t act like he pushed him off a cliff. But that was the truth.

What had it been? Three hours since he woke up?

He found it difficult to wrap his head around the fact that no more than four hours ago, he was dying of his sickness in a dirty prison cell.

Taking in a shuddering breath, Aiden reminded himself of what he woke up to: a time before the Storm. The day _of_ the storm, to be precise; and he still had all his memories of the event and after.

Now he was being presented with a choice.

Could he? Could he skip the building competition? Would that change anything? Was this a second chance for him to stop the Witherstorm, by not going?

Or could he stop it _by_ going and getting rid of the wither in the basement, before it was released?

(Maybe this was hell, forcing him to relive his worst mistakes in a cycle, and this was just the beginning.)

“No,” he shook his head, pushing down the incoming heaviness making his chest ache. “No, I want to go.”

“Are you sure?”

Aiden forced himself to look away from his partner, couldn’t bear to look at the unsettled and skeptical frown on his face.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

(Maybe things can be different.)

Maybe he could change something. Maybe he could just go through everything again as normal, then when he’s inside the auditorium (because he and the others already bought their keynote tickets ahead of time), find the basement and destroy the wither skulls. There had to be lava somewhere, it would be easy.

(“Don’t jinx yourself,” he thought to himself.)

That wasn’t hard to understand.

It didn’t hit him until they made it to the registrar that he’d have to meet Olivia’s group here again, and he began to question, “Do I have to make fun of them again?” After Sky City he barely even had the energy to hold on to anymore hate, to Lukas or Jesse or anybody else. Not even Isa or Milo he could be frustrated by. They all were justified in hating him. He had no reason to hate any of them.

He just thought, “Okay, I won’t insult them. It’s the least I could do with this second chance.” Even if he had no idea why he was repeating everything all over again. So when Lukas is signing the registration paper, when he feels Olivia’s presence behind him and smells the dirty pig’s scent come closer, he makes no effort to turn and sneer.

Fear seized him once more, as he gasped and backed away, confused and terrified, when everything around him went black.

Black as in the environment - not his vision - suddenly lost color, save for some sort of red gridline covering everything like a blanket. Everything, even his friends beside him, went still, frozen;featureless and blank.

“Aiden?”

The voice was trembling and disbelieving, high-pitched as if surprised and terrified. Swiftly turning to the direction of the voice, Aiden’s eyes fell on Jesse, the girl who destroyed the Witherstorm, the girl he saw Lukas flirting with, the girl he tried to kill at Sky City. She stared at him, pale, wide-eyed, and tearing up.

She shook her head as if trying to convince herself, “No. You’re not real,” leaving Aiden bewildered and out of the loop, staring at her and not knowing what to do or say.

“What are you talking about?” He stepped forward, and she took a small step backwards. Jesse trembled all the while. “Jesse, what’s going on?”

“You can’t be here!” She sobbed, “No way!”

(He’d never seen her cry before.)

“Jes-”

Almost embarrassed, she turned her head away, curling into herself and hastily wiping away her own tears. If Aiden wasn’t clueless before, he was now. He’d have put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but something about it - perhaps being the guy who tried to kill her - felt like he wasn’t in a position to do so. He watched her, helpless and useless.

Jesse murmured something, voiceless and breathless. “I’m sorry.” She turned to him and said, trying to force her voice to work, “I’m sorry.”

With that, Aiden was afraid of any answers his questions might have. “What for?” He asked anyway. “What the hell is going on?” 

With him waking back up before the Witherstorm, with Jesse the only one here in this red and black void, that was all he could think to say to encapsulate everything running through his head. Jesse seemed shellshocked where she stood, frightened and confused far more than he was. For several moments, they stood there, in the red-grid lined void, staring at each other; unable to say a word.

Finally, Jesse stepped forward, standing tall despite her grieving appearance, forcing her trembling fists to her sides.

“You’ve gone through the Witherstorm once before, haven’t you?”

Aiden paled. “You too?”

Those words apparently hit harder than Aiden thought they would, as Jesse inhaled sharply, as if something hit her like a bat and he’d thrown a wrench into something he wasn’t even aware of. “Oh my god,” Jesse shook her head, mumbling swears to herself under a humorless laugh. “You have no fucking idea.”

Jesse explained everything to him in short, succinct sentences. They were almost monosyllabic, in a way, with how much she stopped and stuttered and tried not to cry. She sat him down on the textureless grass and asked him, “Do you know what a timeloop is?”

He did. In a fit of disbelief, he thought, “No way. No way was that what was going on right now,” but she told him, in vivid detail, about everything that happened from start to finish- from the building competition to the Witherstorm to Sky City. And she told him the story again, only with slight differences, differences that became more and more meaningless as she cried and explained everything that happened.

With each difference - each fireworks statue (they built an Enderman last time), each surviving Order member (Magnus could have _died_ ), each weapon to kill off the Storm - Aiden could remember. He had nothing clear, nothing precise, but the moments he could barely remember, where things were foggy and rippling in and out of comprehension, seemed to line up with the differences. The suits of armor Jesse wore, the ceremony where Jesse said nothing, to the point that Petra took over and let her step aside, when Aiden actually felt a light bit of sympathy for her.

They were all meaningless when looking at the bigger picture.

“Imagine this,” Jesse moved her hands about, “imagine this huge fucking painting of just a line. It’d look like a DNA helix, y’know, with the branching lines coming out of it that _always_ return to the main line.”

She scoffed and dropped her hands. “And it just keeps going and going and going. No room for error, no chance for pause. It’s bullshit.”

Her tears were dry and gone, and her voice was calm in a way that scared Aiden by the dissonance, as her face and her eyes were as red as ever from crying.

* * *

“Follow the script,” she told him. The reason they found themselves in this void, with the red grid lines on the black backdrop, was because he didn’t “follow the script” in that instance, by not turning around and making fun of her group and prompting two of his friends to do the same. She described it as a performance coming to a halt, the script being put on pause and waiting for the performers to catch up, so that the play would resume.

(“I could do that,” he joked, recalling his time in theater. Jesse stifled a laugh.)

“We can’t stay on pause for too long,” because then it becomes too painful. The script demands to be followed, the audience demands to be entertained. Jesse barely had any description to give, just the fact that an overwhelming pain took her over, an instant punishment when she stayed on pause for too long. “Ten hours,” she said was how long it took. “It wouldn’t stop until I got up and moved and continued the script myself.”

“But wouldn’t that be difficult?” He asked, genuinely confused, “Isn’t overwhelming pain supposed to be debilitating?”

“That’s exactly why we don’t pause for long,” Jesse said with a bitter smile. Aiden shut his mouth.

He shuddered at the idea of testing that out for himself.

(“Does that mean I can’t sneak into the basement and destroy the wither skulls myself?”

Jesse blinked at him, stunned for a moment, then laughed lightheartedly. “Nope. That’s not allowed.”

Pain still laced her voice.)

So he followed along, as best as he could. Insulting them again was far easier to do than he thought it would be. He slipped into the persona of the stupid jock he always played himself up to be and said dryly, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Order of the Losers,” with a roll of his eyes as he tried to avoid Olivia’s halfhearted glare.

“Great, the fail squad’s here,” Maya followed up. Now that he was hearing it again, in a different context, _and_ after he’d hugged her and Gill sincerely earlier and spoke sensitively with them, those words felt just as unnatural as they did natural.

“Hey Lukas, get a load of these losers!”

It stung. It was fine. It was both of them, at the same time. Something he should have expected but didn’t.

He paled at the feeling in his gut - (“This was really who we were, huh?”) - and turned to follow his friends as quickly as he could.

The laughter he forced out was somehow heard as natural in every aspect by everybody else but him.

It felt like a dream. Experiencing everything all over again did genuinely feel like a dream; like the dream one would have of them getting ready for the day, brushing their teeth and showering and getting dressed; and then waking up and having to do all of that “all over again.”

The exception was that this time, he _did_ have to do everything all over again. For a second time, he built the rainbow beacon. For a second time, he had to destroy the block and burn Reuben, he had to talk to the competition facilitators, he and the others separated to browse Endercon; so on and so forth.

(“I heard intense heat causes brain damage! It does boost the flavor something crazy, though! … ...Hey, listen-”

“We’ll talk later, Aiden. Follow the script.”)

There were quite a few things to do in such a short amount of time.

After the pause, Jesse left, and Aiden walked the other way, as he did before. He decided to head to the auditorium to “meet with the others,” though he knows they will not come, because they didn’t in the last loop. Making it to the extremely disheveled bouncer and handing him his ticket, Aiden ignored the crafting stall that was void of any Ocelot or boyfriend.

(Because he went with Jesse and Petra. He left without waiting to tell Aiden.

Did Lukas ever intend on meeting with him to begin with?)

He shoved the thoughts down as he did his ticket stub, and he strolled as casually as he could into the auditorium. Looking around, hoping to see any sign of Jesse or Lukas, he saw beyond the crowds an iron door swinging ajar.

Aiden bit his lip, trying to ignore his thoughts and impulses and looked away; and waited for the old man to come and sabotage the keynote.

The dream of deja vu turned quickly into a nightmare as the Witherstorm was unleashed.

He ran.

* * *

Aiden didn’t know if he did or didn’t want these differences Jesse talked about to exist.

He thought, in theory, that they were fine. As if they were some sort of relief from the same old story happening again and again and again. Little aesthetic details that Jesse could just trigger whenever she wanted, whichever she wanted. Some semblance of the normalcy they used to have to keep themselves sane in the looping story.

Maybe that was still true, but right now, he wanted to scream.

Lukas virtually _leapt_ off the horse he was riding, ran up to Aiden, and tackled him in a hug, knocking his breath out of him and almost making them tumble to the ground. He was _crying_ , actually crying into his shoulder, wrapping him in an embrace Aiden couldn’t help but return.

This didn’t happen before. He didn’t get to reunite with Lukas until after the storm was destroyed, when a rescue team found them and brought them back to a makeshift shelter. But Lukas was here, explaining everything in a rush and stumbling over his words; and Aiden held him and kissed him again and ran his hands through his familiar blond hair and told him, “Calm down, I’m here.”

It was needed. He _needed_ this, needed to see Lukas again, needed to see his friends all together and alive during the storm. They were _here_.

This is what he lost.

This is what he destroyed.

This is the last he’ll ever see of it in the linear timeline.

He needed this, in the same way he needed everything to go back to normal. He lulled himself into a false sense of security, phasing in and out with the truth in constant, consistent waves that he came to believe both.

In believing both, every look he shared with Lukas, everytime he looked into his eyes and saw the last bits of his love fade away, every touch, every embrace, every breath they took, he felt another punch to his chest; harder and stronger than the last.

He wished Jesse didn’t do this. He wished this wasn’t even an option for her, one of the things she could change willy-nilly in the timeloops.

He wanted this, which was why he didn’t.

Every second he spent with Lukas in this new experience was another cry he had to fight and lie about to the man he loved and lost.

* * *

“They’re at Soren’s fortress,” he explained quickly. “They’re destroying the storms, right now, but there are _three_ of those things! We have to help!”

“Can we use these?” Gill asked as he held up bunches of fireworks he kept from EnderCon. Maya blinked bewildered at him while Aiden struggled not to laugh. Lukas shrugged, “Those’ll work.”

Maya cut in then. “For the record,” she held up a hand, “I’m absolutely down to help destroy that shitstorm.”

“Ditto!” Gill exclaimed.

Aiden only gave Lukas a nod and a smile for the other man to grin widely.

Together, they set out north to catch up to Jesse.

* * *

He couldn’t help remembering the pain from before.

How could he? Before everything reset, it was with him every day. It inserted itself into his life and completely ruptured his regular lifestyle, something he didn’t think the Witherstorm by itself could achieve. It followed him to Sky City and stayed like a stubborn roommate.

(Although a better way to describe the sickness itself was as if he was _missing_ a roommate.

It was both better and worse that that roommate he was missing wasn’t Lukas.)

When this loop had started, it had gone away in his sleep between the end of the previous loop and the beginning of this one, and he was left with a dull ache, a faint throbbing of pain at the back of his consciousness, his senses. Like some sort of placebo left behind from his memory of it happening.

(He remembered having a nightmare in between, too, but he couldn’t recall what it was about at all.)

At first, he thought it was fine. Of course it was gone when everything started over again, he only got it after the storm. He could anticipate it this time.

He _thought_ he could anticipate it.

But it came back and ambushed him in the dark.

All of it. As he curled up and screamed and cried, as the Witherstorm died again, as Jesse plunged a sharpened shovel into it and retroactively tore through his skull, it hurt. It hurt so much. Lukas’ new presence here, or the different location, or anything that was different from before didn’t help him or his pain at all.

Perhaps it was because Lukas wasn’t by his side to begin with.

Did he prefer that? Did he want Lukas to be here, at his side, to worry his ass off and hold him gently (even if that felt suffocating), shush him with sweet and soft words as he always did (they didn’t mean anything in the end), make sure to stay by his side while he was hurting? Or was this reality what he wanted? This reality where Lukas left Aiden to attend to Jesse, who climbed out of the water, searching for her dead pig. This reality where Gill was the one worrying his ass off and he could see, with clearer sight now that he had context, that Maya was trying to hide how pissed off she was at Lukas when he sprinted towards Jesse right after he collapsed.

Thinking only made his head hurt. Entertaining both reality and fantasy made his heart ache all the more.

...Heartache.

That’s what it was.

(Was he really to be subject to this for the rest of his life?)

As he writhed on the ground while the others tried to find resources to help him, he figured it was appropriate: his palms coated in gunpowder, his eyes watering, the strange new presence he couldn’t quite place. This was fine.

This was hell. This was his punishment.

He deserved every bit of this.

The first time Aiden was caught up about the timeloops, it was just Lukas with him and Gill and Maya. This time, Jesse stood at the foot of his bed with Lukas at his bedside. Jesse explained everything, telling the story alongside the Ocelot. Though now, since he didn’t have to, knowing everything after the first loop, Aiden let himself zone out and stare into nothing. Their words and the story droned on in the background, a mere noise alongside the soft, yet high-pitched, ringing in his ears as he lost himself in his thoughts. Questions upon questions that he couldn’t articulate piled higher and higher, as he sat there ruminating over the events he just re-lived.

At some point, the story stopped, the recapping was done, and Maya and Gill were getting up to return to work.

“Aid.”

Aiden blinked, still taken by the familiar nickname, and finally focused, looking up at Lukas, who held his hand gently. The man looked at him with soft eyes, but now that Aiden had context, now that he knew what he did, he saw conflict in them too, swirling like the inconspicuous beginning of a terrible storm.

“How are you feeling?”

Trying to catch up, he shrugged with a stutter. “I- I’ll be fine.”

Despite the frown, a small, relieved smile had formed. “Okay,” Lukas squeezed his hand gently. “I’ll come back later, okay?”

Aiden nodded, and Lukas left.

(Seeing his back turned to him, leaving, and shutting the door behind him hurt Aiden all the more.

Would he really come back?)

“I was the one who sent him over.” 

He looked to the last person remaining in the room with him- Jesse, wearing a full suit of blue-green armor, a set he didn’t remember her wearing last time- hadn’t she been wearing orange? He supposed that was part of the differences.

“I’m sure he’s told you. It’s one of the choices I could have made, so it didn’t divert the script in any way.” She shrugged nonchalantly, though Aiden thought there was a bit of a stutter there. Perhaps it was his eyelids fluttering as his heart hammered against his chest as he recalled the reunion. “I thought you might have needed or wanted to see him again, after-”

Jesse looked away and bit her lip. Aiden scoffed, ‘There it was.’

“I thought it might help.”

“It didn’t,” Aiden spat bitterly, “It didn’t help at all.”

Jesse, with closed eyes, nodded in understanding and leaned back against the wall once more, far more relaxed by his anger than he expected her to be, almost frustrating him even more when she didn’t seem to be affected in any way. “I can get that,” she said simply. “Just lemme know if you ever wanna see him again, ‘kay? It wouldn’t hurt the script.”

“I don’t want to see him again,” he said too quickly for his liking.

She must have seen through him too, as she raised a brow at him, her skepticism evident. Though much to his relief, she said nothing and shrugged.

“Okay.”

So she was there, at the foot of his bed, leaning against the wall. Her arms folded across her chest, her face neutral, and her hair still a tangled, frizzy mess. Looking into her eyes, which bored heavily into his, his half-hearted glare melted away into shock as he saw how _tired_ she was. Confidence radiated from her in a way he didn’t recognize before, but her eyes…

Aiden gulped.

“So,” she tilted her head, voice just as deadpan as before, as if that earlier bit never happened. It startled him momentarily. “How are you _really_ feeling?”

Her voice was low and dead, a stark contrast to how he usually knew her, to the time earlier when she cried openly. It was almost uncanny, sending him into whiplash.

He let out a breath as he fell onto his back, thinking hard and examining every inch of himself he could feel physically and internally. Physically, he hurt all over. Even without moving an inch, he felt a sort of numb stinging through his aching limbs, a pit in his stomach and chest he couldn’t quite source.

That was fine.

But he looked deeper and internally, emotionally, he realized how broken he felt. He felt limp and exhausted in every cell in his body, like his energy was completed depleted and _gone_ , like a piece of him was missing. A piece that he couldn’t reunite with - because he didn’t know where it was? Because it was gone? He couldn’t tell.

But he felt hollow. Hollow, in a way different than hunger, in a way that was almost worse than every mental episode he had every night.

He felt... gone.

Like

he

already

****

**_died_**.

The pull tugged him somewhere he couldn’t reach, somewhere he couldn’t see. It manifested as the darkness that seized his heart and grasped without even choking him or tightening his chest. He just felt heavier with the weight of the darkness that tried to occupy the now empty space, the vacancy that made him feel broken.

Before he even knew it, tears were streaming from his eyes and he could barely breathe steadily through the hiccups. He didn’t even realize that Jesse was sitting next to him and rubbing his back gently, with a tissue box offered to his lap, until he curled up and broke down, grieving with no idea why.

“Is this how it’s going to be?” He asked her, struggling to even speak. “Everyday?”

Jesse seemed different to him, now that he was actually sitting here, with her, in an entirely different context than what he was used to or grew up in. She seemed older, _far_ older than he knew her as, older than he was. She was as tired and exhausted as he felt on the days when he couldn’t bear the idea of getting up to stand and breathe. The same kind of tired wherein he resigned himself to autopilot, when he realized, once again, that he wouldn’t be dying anytime soon.

That was exacerbated now.

“How long?” He asked her. His voice was higher with his sobs, stifled and stammering, reminding him of himself when he was a younger spawn. “How long have you been in these loops? How long will _I_ be in these loops?”

Aiden didn’t know what he wanted to hear. If this really wasn’t a nightmare, if he really wasn’t having a fever dream in his cell or even in bed with Lukas back at home, then what was this? Was this hell? Were they resigned to this for the rest of eternity?

The thoughts that kept piling made the horror sinking in even worse with Jesse’s response.

“I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Number of Iterations: 2**


	3. worthy of a post-card if you had anybody to send one to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw did i ever say which jesse this is? because it's the s1 jesse with the red in her hair. thats actually super important, assuming youre keeping up with the rest of Just.
> 
> additional context:  
> renegade jesse

“Do you want to meet at the festival later?” She asked him.

The festival: the celebration they held a few nights after Gabriel handed the amulet - and the title of the Order - to Jesse and her friends. Somebody apparently had an apocalyptic stockpile of firework stars, because with a few dozen stacks of fireworks, everybody who survived the storm lit up the sky with colors; and they cheered and danced and ate. A moment of bliss and carelessness, before everybody had to return to the inevitable daily grind.

It was an innocuous question, in her tone and words. She said it to him as she was leaving, the door in her hands, prepared to close. He was stunned, but he shrugged eventually and said, without thinking, “Sure.”

He only remembered that he spent most of the festival with Lukas when she closed the door behind her. The boy blinked and held his head in his hands.

Why did he say yes?

Aiden wondered that, as he got back up on his feet; holding Lukas’ hand and feeling, for the first time in several days, that he didn’t need to vomit at all. He walked hand-in-hand with him, afraid to let go, (as if letting go would mean losing him forever,) as if standing by himself would make him fall back down, literally and figuratively, and he’d be spilling his guts all over the ground again.

(He managed the first time the festival happened. It could be fine.)

Did he not want to experience the festival the same way again? He’d already experienced it before, as he did everything else, but how could it hurt to relive a fun party meant to relieve the stress and grief everybody had gone through?

For the most part, he had no answer. He had no plan, as he was going through the motions, and that was partly because Jesse never even specified a place or time to meet; which both stressed him out and helped him to relax and take things as they went. He was confident he could wing it, as he’s done with several things before.

For the most part, his luck hadn’t ran out. He spent most of the festival with Lukas and Gill and Maya; the key word being “most.”

Maya, of course, ran off at some point because she met a cute girl and wanted to talk more with her. Her priorities might have seemed skewed given what everyone went through, but Aiden laughed fondly, relaxed and without worry, as she excused herself and took her empty plate and cup away. His friend dealt with things like trauma and setbacks differently than other people, him and the others included. That’s how people worked; and Maya worked by giving herself a dose of normalcy to calm her nerves for later. In this case, that was a nice girl she could think happily about without worry or fear. Neither of those were like Maya.

Gill was a man who appreciated privacy and his own personal space, so he left at some point after to collect himself, and also to leave his two other friends alone with each other. He gave both of them a hug before he walked off to the DJ, undoubtedly to sit on a bench and stay there until the festivities died down. Perhaps to recollect himself after the socializing, perhaps to ponder on the Witherstorm and what he and everybody else just survived. He did a lot of thinking when he had nothing or no one to distract him, and sometimes it was to his own detriment. Aiden knew this, as one of his closest friends. He didn’t try to stop him, though. If Gill wanted comfort or somebody to listen, he’d come to him or Maya in his own time.

Lukas was the one Aiden couldn’t figure out.

He left and never came back. After Maya left, then Gill left, Lukas got up and said, “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.” He took their plates and cups and disappeared, somehow, into the sparse crowd.

Perhaps he’d forgotten Aiden was sick because he was fine for most of the day.

(Key word: Most.)

Last time this happened, unsuspecting Aiden got up to look for him and saw him talking with Jesse under a lamp post. This time, Aiden _did_ get up, now with a different goal: to find Jesse, possibly before Lukas did (possibly hoping to not see them talking together again, because that seemed to be a sight that consistently triggered bad events).

She asked to meet with him, after all.

Aiden left not long after him, following his boyfriend inconspicuously and then moving ahead, hoping he wouldn’t catch his signature dark, unruly hair. He reached the same lamp post he remembered seeing Lukas and Jesse under, but neither of them were anywhere in sight. 

He frowned. Had he missed them already? Was he remembering things wrong?

He looked around hoping to find Jesse somewhere close by, and he did; though she wasn’t anywhere near the people or the lights or the songs, she was standing under a tree. She waved when his eyes met hers.

Jesse grinned, “You found me.” She wasn’t wearing her regular clothing, not the overalls or teal shirt he last saw her wear. The woman was clad in ripped jeans that showed off hidden, bleeding bandages; a teal, unzipped hoodie that glowed softly in the dark; and a black jersey, white highlights fading and chipping away.

(‘Of course she’s in black,’ he remembers. She’s mourning her pig.)

Aiden shrugged, returning her expression hesitantly. “I guess I did.”

She led him to one of the walls, showing brick staircases and dirt blocks leading to the top that he was sure weren’t part of the design. “Can you climb?” She asked him. He opted for the stairs, and she laughed lightheartedly. “You’re welcome.”

The top of the wall was enough for the two of them to sit comfortably, overlooking enough of the festival to spot who was where, but hidden enough behind the roofs of new houses that nobody they could see could see them. “Did you pick this location on purpose?”

“Yeah. It probably wouldn’t affect things, but,” she chuckled, “I don’t wanna deal with Lukas asking me why he saw us two sitting on the wall side-by-side.”

A bottle cap popped open, “Want some?”

When he turned to look at her, he was greeted by a glass bottle being held out to him, Jesse smiling behind it. Another bottle, one that was open, was in her other hand. “It’s chocolate, whole milk.”

He blinked at it, then her.

“Sure.”

He took the bottle gingerly and struggled, briefly, to pop the cap open. Jesse watched him with a raised brow, he could feel her eyes on him, but she looked away when he side-eyed her and took a sip of her drink. The cap fell open.

One long gulp, and a silence between the two. What could they say? Jesse fiddled with the bottom rim of her glass, her legs swinging and hitting the brick wall they sat on.

“Why did you bring me up here?”

“Like, ask to hang out?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?”

Aiden raised a brow and leaned back, tilting his head to look at her. “Did you really have no reason to?”

Jesse hummed, seemingly genuinely considering her answer. She took a swig of her drink, gulping loudly. Her finger tapped senselessly on her thigh.

“I don’t know.” She finally answered.

“I guess I just wanted to talk with someone,” she said with a shrug. “I haven’t been able to really talk to anybody in ages.”

Despite the implications of that statement, that Jesse was glad that he was here in the loops too, he frowned in sympathy.

“How long have you been in these loops?” He asked her again. Her first response was a shrug.

“The better part of a century?”

Aiden felt sick to his stomach and pointedly looked away from the drink he had in his hands.

She said nothing more, for a moment.

“Why did _you_ come here?” She asked him then, “Why’d you say yes?”

Why did he?

For the most part, he had no idea.

“I guess I have the same answer,” he said with a shrug. That by itself, the casual air of that answer, scared him, piling on top of everything going on.

“The interactions I’ve had with everybody so far… none of them feel real anymore.”

Jesse’s eyes were downcast, contrasting the small, hapless smile on her face.

“Welcome to the club.”

The fireworks started.

The familiar, swinging hiss; the sparks flying straight into the sky; the explosion lit the dark blanket red and green, washing the fizzing glow on everybody below. Jesse and Aiden watched, relaxed and mesmerized.

(Aiden remembers watching it alone last time. He remembers walking home before Gill and Maya, as Lukas told him, “I’ll follow,” and he left to attend to things he never asked about.

He almost drops the glass thinking about it.)

“Are you okay?”

Jesse snaps him out of it, taking him out of his thoughts before he reached the event horizon once more. “I’m fine,” almost left his mouth, but nothing came out, stuttering in a choke that barely made any noise. His eyes water. His hands, trembling as he was, barely manage to set the glass bottle beside him. He tries to blink the tears away.

For the most part, he manages to compose himself enough to clear his throat.

“Is there-” he gulped down the doubts and worries with his coming question. “Is- was- there anything between you and Lukas?”

She blinked at him, confused for a moment before she realized and remembered. A laugh escaped her.

(It sounded genuine.)

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. Aiden couldn’t deny the relief that flooded him. “No, there’s nothing between us. It’s just him.”

“So he _was_ flirting with you!?”

Jesse laughed harder, in tune with the fireworks decorating the sky and spreading smoke through the air. “Maybe? It’s hard for me to tell what’s casual talk and what’s flirting, I never really try deciphering,” she says with a wide grin, face red from laughing. “Besides, with this timeloop business, I’m pretty much unavailable. Can’t have a boyfriend that forgets everything every seven months right?”

Aiden found himself snickering and bringing the glass bottle to his lips. The tears now, he realized, were going away.

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

What comfort was he getting from the idea that Lukas’ attempts produced nothing? A strange one. One that Aiden didn’t know if he wanted to confront just yet, though it would undoubtedly be at the back of his mind as he went home tonight.

“...So, what now?”

His eyes locked with Jesse’s, illuminated by the flashing lights of the fireworks in the sky.

“When we go home after this, is it just.. do we just have to wait? Wait for Sky City to happen? The pause you talked about would happen if I didn’t do anything to make that happen, right?”

Jesse nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. Oh! Except, something will always trigger the Sky City event.”

Aiden frowned, dejected. “What?”

“Yeah, there’s no stopping these kinds of things. The universe- or fate, or something like that,” she waved her hand nonchalantly, as if this were an everyday conversation about nothing unusual. “It’ll make sure Sky City happens. Even if you don’t do anything. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Aiden’s brows furrowed. “But why’s that? How come we can hang out here today when we didn’t in the last loop?”

Jesse sighed. “Give me a minute.”

She took her bottle and downed the remaining contents. Just as she presumably took in the last drop, she lurched forward, empty bottle in hand, and sighed.

Then, she began seamlessly, “Okay, so there’s this little grace period between everything- between certain events in this timeloop,” she started. “EnderCon, the Witherstorm, and Sky City are such events. A few more, _three_ more, specifically, happen after we go through the portal at Sky City.”

“When you leave?”

“Yeah. This murder mansion, a killer A.I., and these people called the Old Builders.” Jesse held up the three fingers she was counting on and tapped her middle finger, the last at the line. “This last one is the last event before the timeline loops over again. After we get out of that hallway and return to the temple, Ivor steals the Atlas, I make my decision, and then-”

She snapped her fingers suddenly, startling Aiden and making him jump.

“The loop starts over.”

“O...kay.” Aiden blinked, trying to process everything, especially whatever it was she talked about towards the end. He had no context for any of that. “I-”

“Don’t worry,” Jesse chuckled. Her hands fell to her lap. “It’s a lot. Take a breather.”

“Do you know how long these loops last, at least?” He asked, his voice rising in pitch and cracking as he tried to comprehend and understand everything at the pace they were going. “So I can at least have something to look forward to in prison?”

Jesse hummed and bit her lip.

“Up to eight months? For the whole thing. I think we spent a month or two in the hallway. And I think we spent a month and a week trying to take down the Witherstorm too, if that helps.”

“The Witherstorm was a month!?”

* * *

He asked about a few more things, most of which had the same answers.

“Why those specific events?” “I don’t know.”

“Will I have to re-enact everything I did in prison?” “I don’t know.”

“What if we died during those grace periods?” “You’ll just wake up to a few moments before you died. Same with the specific events.”

So on and so forth.

When he ran out of questions about the timeloops, they sat together in silence and watched the fireworks. The show was coming to a close now, fewer and fewer fireworks leaving a trailing rhythm, the smoke began to clear, the sparks disappearing in midair. His eyes flickered to the crowd below, dispersing and scattered all over the new town. They weaved through the spaces between each other, fumbling about and meeting with friends, moving through corridors of stalls and walls.

They reminded him of EnderCon.

“Hey,” Aiden started again. “I’m sorry about Reuben.”

Jesse didn’t say anything, if she was intending to at all. He couldn’t gauge her reaction as he continued, eyes downcast and guilty. “Come to think of it, I don’t know why you’ve been treating me decently so far,” he murmured. “But I’m sorry about how _I’ve_ treated you, and called you names, and all that bullshit. You, and your friends, and your pig.”

Jesse bit her lip, though she didn’t look away. Her eyes rested on him, fingers twitching as she watched the man she’d known to be abrasive and obnoxious for so long, be sensitive and human. Her chest was warm, and a small smile appeared on her face.

Of course, Aiden didn’t see this.

“I’m sorry that he died, too, by the way,” he continued. “I didn’t see him fall, and I guess his death is an unchangeable thing too, so-”

Aiden grumbled and shook his head. He finally turned to Jesse.

“Look, the point is that I’m sorry, okay? And,” he shrunk, looking away. “I get it. Losing a pet- an animal- companion- _whatever_. It’s- rough, I know.”

(He pushed through memories of the flood.)

“And I shouldn’t have burned him back at Endercon,” he concluded. “And I’m sorry.”

When he looked back at her, she was smiling, her features softer than earlier, her eyes gleaming in the light.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said to him, gently rubbing and patting his back. “First of all we were _both_ assholes to each other, so I should probably apologize to you too. So on that note, _sorry_ ,” she laughed lightly. “We probably should’ve backed off on each other a long time ago.”

“Jess-”

“You’re fine in my book now, Aiden,” she interrupted him, not allowing him to take more responsibility than he was actually accountable for. She shrugged nonchalantly, “Anyways, I’ve already moved on from all of that, it doesn’t bother me anymore.”

_Even Reuben’s death? What about Sky City?_

Aiden could barely get the question out as Jesse squeezed his arm lightly and continued, saying sincerely, “But thank you. I really appreciate it, that means a lot to me.”

She smiled widely, genuinely, though he didn’t know that yet. He returned a smaller one, unsure.

The fireworks show was over, and with that, the festival. “We should get going now,” she prompted. Aiden agreed, and the two began to climb down the wall. Jesse decided to stay behind to get rid of the stairs she built, insisting that he go on ahead with his friends. So he did, moving away to get going, when-

“Wait-”

Her fingers brushed with his wrist as if to grab him, but they held back. He turned to her anyway.

“For the record, Aiden,” she said sincerely after a stammer, “I’m sorry that you’re part of these loops too. They’re shit and nobody deserves to be stuck in them.”

Their eyes locked, light green to dark brown, under the shade of the shadow of the wall.

“And if you ever need to talk or anything, just find me, okay?”

She moved to start mining the stairs away, her bare hands resting on the dirt, though her eyes never left his. “I’m sure we can find each other easily.”

Aiden, not knowing what to say, just nodded with uncertainty, lips parted as if to say something, waiting for him to come up with the words.

“Thank you, Jesse.”

She flashed him a smile, both exhausted and glad, though Aiden could barely make it out in the dark. She turned fully, this time, to mine the stairs away. Aiden took this as his cue to leave and find the others.

So he did.

For the most part, he was glad he took her invitation.

(“I’ll catch up with you guys,” Lukas told them. He looked at Aiden once and left. Without another word, he walked back into the festival, into the new town, leaving him behind.

Aiden bit his lip, suddenly feeling ill as he watched Lukas leave.

He hadn’t realized that he was with two other people until somebody pat his back - Gill - and pushed him gently to get going home, before any mobs found them.

For the most part, Aiden followed without trouble.)

He’s 100% glad that he accepted the invitation.

* * *

After reliving the Witherstorm tragedy, Aiden was delusional to think that going through everything else again wouldn’t hurt.

He realized very quickly that the seams holding him and his friends together were already tearing, even before Lukas broke up with him last time. It was slow and painful, seeing both his friends now, losing their usual confidence and optimism to their equally characteristic anxiety and despair. Everytime Maya came home, worried over _something_ , being quieter than normal. Everytime Gill spent a little longer in the mines, and his smiles became more and more forced. Every minute of them spending less and less time with Lukas (which Aiden only knew because he’d seen him, everytime, _only_ with one or two of the members of the ‘New Order’).

They reminded him of how they were in prison, shadows of a future that was coming to pass quicker than he liked.

Gill came to him, at the stand where materials were crafted, to pick him up for his final day. The town/shelter was coming along well in housing enough people, at least the ones who had no way or confidence in starting from square one and surviving out in the wilderness by themselves; which meant that they had no more need for the extra materials piling higher and higher in stacks.

“Ready to go, boss?” Gill greets him with a grin. It seems cheery and not out of the ordinary, but Aiden could see the cracks now, the slight twitch at the corners of his lips.

Even before, Aiden could tell something was wrong when Gill called _him_ , and not Lukas, “boss.” But he tried to ignore it. Again. In a futile attempt at denial, Aiden thought if he did nothing, if he played his cards right, Lukas wouldn’t leave.

( _“Yeah, there’s no stopping these kinds of things. The universe- or fate, or something like that; it’ll make sure Sky City happens. Even if you don’t do anything. Believe me, I’ve tried.”_ )

But the breakup still happened. He still walked into his and Lukas’ room to find his partner standing over their bed, likely already finished packing his belongings in his inventory and the bag in his hand.

“Lukas?”

There was no guilt or remorse or anything of the sort on his face. He blinked up at Aiden momentarily before he stood straight and shoved a hand in his pocket and glanced away. He took in a deep breath and said in a low voice, “I have to go, Aiden. We just- don’t work together anymore.”

Like clockwork, they ring in his head twice over, echoing off of the other as he heard the words from the first time all over again.

“Why?”

Either his voice was louder than he thought it was or Lukas didn’t expect him to say anything at all; but he stopped, didn’t go on to say, “I’m laying it straight.”

“Why don’t we work together anymore?”

“What?”

Aiden blinks back tears, and his voice is shaky, and he can barely keep it together. “Why have you been ignoring the others? Why aren’t you telling us anything? We only ever see you at night when we should be sleeping, and you’re-”

He mentally berates himself for breaking as quickly as he did. 

“You’re never around anymore.”

It came out like the whimper of a wounded animal.

Lukas winced and pointedly kept his gaze away, scratching the back of his neck and breathing through his teeth. “Look, Aiden, this happens all the time, alright? Sometimes things just don’t work out, and people break up. Sometimes people fall out of love.”

“But _why_ ?!” Aiden nearly yells, “Give me _something_ , just tell me why you don’t love me anymore, please!”

With just that, he was already breathless, heaving through his falling tears, his jaw hanging yet grinding at the same time as he hurt all over. Opposite to him, Lukas breathed evenly. He was calm, ruminating over his answer, fists balling and letting loose.

It was so cold.

“Aiden, you’ve changed.”

His eyes finally locked on his, catching Aiden off-guard and turning him deathly pale as Lukas glared harshly at him, his gaze cold and holding him in a death grip. “For the worse. It’s been _slow_ , and for the longest time now you’ve been an asshole, a jerk, an unnecessary douchebag to everyone you meet. You and the rest of the Ocelots.”

Aiden was caught utterly dumbfounded by his words. Was he only remembering their off days?

“You’ve become more and more abrasive lately. You’re just- _superficial_ , an _ass_ ,” he shook his head, as if showing disappointment in him that Aiden would typically associate with an older spawn. “Why do you have to keep making fun of Jesse’s group? Why do you have to be so- _reactionary_ and obnoxious and-”

Lukas sighed. He looked away, clicking his tongue after a heavy sigh; like _he_ was the one troubled by all of this, that _he_ was the only one inconvenienced by the subject at hand.

“Spending time with Jesse’s group, I-” he crossed his arms, and his glare returned to his ‘partner,’ blue-green eyes sending an icy, freezing glare. “It feels unwarranted. It feels like you and Gill and Maya have been assholes for no fucking reason, and you know what?”

His arms fell to his sides and he shrugged, and he seemed _relaxed_. Uncaring.

“I’m not gonna be here for that. I quit.”

He reached into his inventory and brought out a large, yellow patch, and tossed it to the bed. It landed face-up, and Aiden recognized it immediately, gasping audibly in horror when he saw the familiar patches Maya had stitched together for Gill. There were black threads sticking out of the edges, a dark contrast to the white sheets that covered their bed.

That was when the tears began to fall.

“What the hell?”

It was a mutter at first, a voiceless motion. Then the tears flooded his vision, cascaded his cheeks as he struggled to breathe evenly. “ _What the fuck, Lukas_?!”

He stared in disbelief, in frustration, brows furrowing in his anger towards the man before him. The man who, despite himself, he still loved. “How could you!?”

“How could _I_ -!?”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” He meant to yell, but it came out with his raised voice and degraded into a whimper, choked on sobs and almost incomprehensible. “I could’ve- We could’ve _changed_ and _fixed that_. We promised to tell each other when something was wrong, I-”

Lukas grumbled, exasperatedly rolling his eyes, making Aiden’s blood boil. “The thing is, Aiden, you’re too fucking stubborn. You’re _unmoored_ , if I told you anything you’d deny it and take no responsibility-”

“ _Take no responsibility_!?”

Suddenly everything around him crumbled to dust. All the progress he thought he made before, when he thought he’d grown better than before, when he thought that Lukas was genuinely proud of him, suddenly fell away, invalidated.

“If anybody’s not taking any fucking responsibility, it’s you!” He cried. “We’ve _both_ fucked up, Lukas, why can’t you see that!? Why can’t we fix this together?!”

“Because _I don’t want to!_ ”

And silence fell, as the two boys realized what was just said, as the words echoed in their heads. Even Lukas seemed to have been caught off-guard at his own words, staring blankly, blinking away sudden tears. Aiden kept his eyes on him silently begging for him for answers. For more, for _anything_ , for something to fix what they had.

But all of that was impossible. It was gone.

“I have to go,” Lukas said in a hurry, and in a rush he came to the door and shoved Aiden out of the way, never looking back as he slammed the doors behind him shut.

Aiden stumbled from the wall and fell to the floor, bruising his knees and sending ripples of pain through his body, ones which he didn’t mind at all as he, pathetically, curled up into a ball and lay against the wall. His whole body hurt and ached, tired and sore. His breathing felt constricted, ragged as he tried to keep the last remaining pieces of himself together; as more and more and more left him behind, forgotten, erasing themselves from his memory.

(Distantly, he heard the sound of an axe being thrown into a wall. A ragged cry, an agonized scream. The familiar sound of grocery bags being dropped haphazardly.

He struggled to breathe evenly, and everything hurt.)

Almost instantly, Lukas was too far gone.

* * *

One day, when Maya came home from replanting trees, Gill came with her, off work earlier than he usually was. Maya was filling the cabinet with apples and cocoa beans as Gill heaved a large, torn, leather-bound book on the table.

“What’s this?” Aiden asked him. Maya seemed to have already been informed, as she gave Gill a knowing glance.

“Have you ever heard of this thing called ‘the Eversource?’”

Aiden’s eyes widened in horror, but he passed it off as intrigue; and his friends were none the wiser.

* * *

Of his own volition, Aiden didn’t see Jesse again until the beginning of Sky City. He thought he would, but he didn’t; keeping more to himself as he mulled over the last time he ever saw Lukas, as he re-lived the birth of the Blaze Rods.

(“Again? Why isn’t Lukas with them?” Maya wondered. Even as she whispered, her annoyance was clear. So was Gill’s.

“Because he’s a fucking asshole, that’s why,” he comments as he leans against a tree.

Aiden says nothing to amuse nor defuse his friends.)

Pretending that everything was happening for the first time to him (which so few of it was), had come easier to him than he expected. Perhaps it was his distraction with the different breakup, perhaps it was his natural talent of acting like something is what it isn’t.

Whichever it was, it unnerved him as it did with the Witherstorm.

“You were right.”

The world around him turned to black once again, giving way to the red gridlines he’d first seen months back. Jesse blinked at him in surprise, standing dumbfounded opposite to him.

Both their swords were drawn and raised, and to any outsider, it looked like the beginning of a battle; as they and their friends had their weapons drawn and ready, four against four in an open yard.

Jesse’s features softened as she looked over him. “I was going to ask if you were okay, but you beat me to the pausing.” She lowered her sword, monstrous in size and glamorous with enchantments, and let the tip rest on the ground. “I was right about what?”

Aiden sighed as he lowered his own weapon. “Well, to answer your question: I’m not okay,” he started off. Jesse nodded in understanding. “And you were right before, about how all this worked. About the universe making sure this still happened.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles sympathetically.

“I thought before that the way you described this whole thing was weird. Back at the Building Competition, about scripts and performances, but you’re right.”

The smile that came upon his face was bittersweet - both recalling memories of the life he had before the Witherstorm, and thinking about the months he endured of becoming a Blaze Rod a second time.

“This feels just like a play.”

And the actor returned to his part, and the actress did hers, and no other character was any wiser to anything but the script. They followed their lines. They followed directions. From the old temple and back, through the portal, to the city in the sky.

* * *

Aiden genuinely thought that it would be a chore, a task in and of itself to remember his lines from before and say them word for word with matching intonations; but that wasn’t the case, evidently. He found himself to be reinvigorated, with the different breakup, with the new information, the added context.

He felt both angrier and sadder at the truth of everything happening.

He called out Jesse from the crowd, but the whole time, his eyes were on Lukas, the blond that didn’t care to look back.

It passed by him so quickly. Within two days, Aiden’s life was over, and his sickness consumed him, and he was thrown into a makeshift prison.

Start the clock.

1 Locomotive,

2 Locomotive,

until the 2 months run out

And the loop starts over

A third time.

At some point down the line, he was back at square one. Clean, healthy, and at home with a boyfriend lying next to him in bed. Aiden chuckled to himself on how surreal this new reality was, but as he looked down on Lukas’ sleeping form, he couldn’t help but let that give way to choked sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw please excuse my excessive inclusion of ocelots stuff in this aidesse fic,,, it's all abt aiden from aiden's pov and he does get together with jesse eventually, but theyre really important to him i cant just leave them out of everything..,,,., just a psa/fyi just in case
> 
> **Number of Iterations: 3**


	4. record the vase breaking then reverse the footage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i made jesse too open in sharing personal stuff with aiden but in fairness does she have any inhibitions anymore
> 
> aiden isnt the worst companion to have ig. certainly if it were somebody else like hadrian or smth she'd just be snarky 24/7 and there'd be more scientific stuff going on, like looking for a way out of the loops! but nope all we get now is edgy teen retrospection and philosophical discussion. F.
> 
> just so you know, red is only one of two Jesses lucky enough to have a companion in the timeloops. also the other companion isnt hadrian god please

_The timeloops were fucking agonizing._

They went by both too slowly and too quickly. The Witherstorm was easy enough (and the pains of his recurring sickness he’d already gotten used to). Playing his character came far too easily to him for his liking, but that just made everything go by faster; which on the one hand was great, because he wanted to get everything over with, but on the other? It meant he and the others were thrown into prison faster.

He hated prison far more than he did the first or second time.

It felt like, then, that no time was passing at all. That with each disease he contracted, each sleepless night he spent barely even able to breathe, just added more and more minutes for him to wait for Jesse to finish the loop. He thought, one night, that he could try to forget, that he could pretend that this was the first time he’d been going through everything, that his new life wasn’t reliving traumatic events repeatedly to no end, but piling community service hours sky high (ha ha) until the day he died; but that was all useless.

He woke up again at their old home, with Lukas by his side, in bed, and the Building Competition just hours away.

He resisted the urge to scream and throw himself into a wall.

* * *

Before “Lukas and Aiden” it was “Gill and Maya and Lukas and Aiden.” The four of them, “the Ocelots,” just friends tinkering with build designs and gushing over fairytales and legends. There was a reason they consistently won the building competitions. There was a reason Aiden wasn’t alone at Sky City.

Because it wasn’t just Aiden that was hurting.

Sure, now he was a wreck because he knew how everything ended anyway, and he had to relive all of that over and over again to the point that he had to fight boredom and numbness; but his remaining two friends, the only people left he actually cared about, had to go through everything all over again without realizing. They had to watch one of their friends drift away, and the wounds were always fresh.

The thing that Aiden hated most was seeing his friends fall apart and never get to repair themselves, like a book that never truly progressed.

Maya had to cry again.

She came home earlier than she usually did, and she broke into sobs before she could make it to the food supply and pretend everything was okay. She weakly tried and failed to shove Aiden away as he came and put a hand on her back.

“I don’t know why I’m crying. This is baseless and stupid, but,” she sniffs and takes another tissue from the box. The two of them now sat at the makeshift dining table (really a crafting table surrounded by chairs). “It feels like that fucking Witherstorm changed everything. Nothing feels the same anymore, and Lukas-”

She stops herself, and Aiden knows it’s because he’s his boyfriend and that he would normally get snippy with anybody who dared to lay a negative word on him for no reason. This time, Aiden concurs. “He’s felt different, too, right?”

Maya blinked at him, surprised, yet relieved, and nodded. “Yeah, he has. Like, I feel like he’s been passive aggressive lately? And giving me the cold shoulder?” She hugs herself and drops her head on the table, sniffling and blinking away tears. “I want to ask him if anything’s wrong, but I feel like he’ll just ignore me.”

A sob breaks through a hiccup.

“I just want all of us to be together again. I wish everything was the same as before.”

Aiden sighed somberly.

“Yeah, me too.”

(In more ways than one.)

She apologized for overreacting, even though Aiden reassured her she wasn’t, and she retreated to her room; where she stayed the rest of the day.

For her, this was the first time she’s had this specific conversation.

For Aiden, it’s been a thing that’s slowly building up to two years.

(Eight months repeated twice over. He’s surprised at how quickly time had passed.)

Days later, he heard C418’s “cat” playing in the living room, just outside his room, and knew immediately that that was Gill. Among all of them, he was the one with the biggest appreciation for music, the one who used his first diamond to craft a jukebox; and he’s kept that jukebox with him everywhere he went.

For all they knew, that jukebox was the only thing remaining from their old home.

When Aiden opens the door, leaving his bedroom and entering the living room, he finds Gill, sitting with his chin on his knees, hugging his legs loosely and staring wide eyed at him. “Did I wake you up?” He moved to turn the volume down, “I’m sorry-”

“No, you’re okay. I haven’t slept. ...May I sit with you?”

“I-” Gill pursed his lips and squirmed on the seat. “Sorry, I- I kinda wanna be alone.”

“Oh.”

“S-Sorry..”

“Don’t worry about it, Gill,” Aiden said softly. He nodded in understanding. “You’re okay. But if you wanna talk, I’m here, okay?”

His friend blinked at him, dumbfounded; though he nodded all the same. “Okay. Thanks, man.”

“No problem.”

(Anything to alleviate the pain.)

* * *

Yet it seemed like everything hurt more _and_ less as each loop came to pass.

As if he was trying to stop Sky City from happening (which he was), as if he was trying to get the pain to stop (which it never did); the chances of everything happening just seemed to increase, to come faster, when he tried to do something to fix what was wrong.

Like this moment, when he thought he could talk to Lukas earlier than the day he’d always chosen to leave the Ocelots.

“Lukas?”

The moon was already high up in the sky, the hours late, the ripe time for clusters of mobs to start roaming the darker corners of the world. Aiden was sitting on his and Lukas’ bed, in the house the Ocelots made away from the town. His boyfriend had just gotten out of the shower. Maya was likely fast asleep (the only one among them with a remotely healthy sleep schedule), and Gill was probably the opposite (he always had trouble sleeping, and no pharmacies were available to supply him with his medicines); as it was every night.

As if every night was just like the last.

“Yeah?”

Lukas sat at the foot of his side of the bed, leaving plenty of room and putting a distance between him and Aiden.

His heart beat rapidly in anxiety.

“Is there.. anything you wanna talk about?” He mumbled, although it seemed to reverberate along the walls of the small room. “After the Witherstorm, I-”

He tugged at his sleeves and fiddled with them, and surrendered to his want to look away. Occasionally he glanced up to gauge Lukas’ body language, but there was nothing he could catch, with the man’s back turned to him.

All he could tell was that he seemed tense. Probably was the entire time.

Had he been anticipating something like this?

“Are we still okay?” Aiden asked meekly, hoped against all hope that the answer would be ‘Yes’ and that it’d be genuine; even though he knew the real answer, or at the very least what came from his answer.

“Because I still love you,” he confessed. Lukas’ silence nagged at him even more, made the voice inside him scream at him to stop, but he kept going. “I love you- _so much_ \- I- I was worried sick over you the entire Witherstorm. I can’t-”

“I know.” 

He stopped him. Before Aiden could spill and confess how much he loved Lukas, how much he really did care about him; said man stopped him, not wanting to hear it.

The words rang through his head, rhyming with the internal dread and despair and hope, far too soft and yet far too loud; while his voice was just low under his breath.

Aiden stared at him, the man who refused to look back and acknowledge him beyond words.

He never said “I love you” back, nor did he say anything else. Lukas moved under the blankets and slept at the furthest edge of the bed, his back turned to Aiden. Silence and the cold were all he left him.

Aiden felt something inside him crack, the fracture giving way, and everything inside him _hurt_ and _stung_. He could barely let it manifest as a sob or cry, because he looked away, gripped the sheets tight, and endured his tightening chest and aching head.

Without another word, he got off the bed, donned his leather jacket and shoes, and walked into the wilderness, weaponless and numb.

* * *

It was serene, in a way. Even as his mind raced with formless thoughts about the timeloops, about Jesse, about his friends, about Lukas; the cold night dulled his mind, his senses, and comforted him in a haze.

(It didn’t seem real. Unreal, as in it was fake; unreal, as in it was a dream. It was neither, yet that’s all he could perceive it to be.)

Lukas broke up with him. That was the breakup. Every conflict they had before always had the two of them discussing it into the night, making everything clear and settling a compromise. Aiden always went to sleep, afterwards, reassured and loving his partner all the more.

Under normal circumstances, this could have just been a minor slip, a blip in the radar that would go away. Something temporary, but it wasn’t. Far from it.

He just made the pain of him and his friends come faster than they did before.

Aiden laughed bitterly to himself, only realizing then that his eyes were itchy, that he felt humid, that his stomach was empty and fussy, and he was alone in the woods.

How far had he gone from home? (Could he still rekindle things with Lukas?)

Was he in danger? (No.)

The sound of rushing water snapped him out of that panicked stupor. Relief and fear washed over him, manifesting in a grin upon hearing something that was neither a mob nor the tense silence. He followed the sound, eager for _something_ , anything; and was somehow unsurprised to see that Jesse was there, sitting alone, hunched over upon the grass. She didn’t seem to have heard his arrival.

“If I knew I’d find you here I would’ve come the last three times already.”

Jesse turned to him then, a neutral expression he couldn’t see much of quickly melting into a smile. “Last two times, actually.”

Aiden hummed and shrugged his mistake away. “Can I sit with you?”

“Sure thing.”

Jesse pat the patch of grass next to her, moving the bottle of water unto her lap and fumbling with it in her hands. She only glanced his way once as he sat next to her, cross-legged as he joined her in overlooking the small lake, the waterfall that rushes ceaselessly into it.

“Any reason for why you’re out here without anything on you?” She asks him. He turns his head to her as he rests on his hands, only realizing then that she was in full armor- the purple-and-black one, now. She always changed her decision each loop, from what he’d seen at least. He closed his eyes and sighed, returning his gaze to the lake. He breathed deeply, slowly, trying to resist any tears that wished to make themselves known.

He didn’t want to cry.

“Lukas and I broke up,” he said, as uncaring as he possibly could. Jesse straightened, apparently surprised by what he said. “Already?!”

“Yeah.”

Figures that she’d have known the usual time and day of which they’d be broken up. Aiden sighs.

“I tried talking to him and he gave absolutely no shits.”

He mentally smacked himself over the head for how he summarised what had transpired. Externally, he hung his head and groaned.

“Oh.”

Jesse blinked, now clueless and with no idea on how to respond. She hesitantly patted his shoulder in an attempt at comfort. “I’m sorry, man.”

Aiden huffed, but said nothing. For the moment, they allowed rushing waterfall to fill the silence.

The lake that was never still rippled continuously as more water poured into the pool. And the water, clean and pristine, never seemed to rise; as steady as the surface of the ground surrounding it. It continued to flow into nothing, falling from the unclear, paradoxical atmosphere, the sky that, somewhere else, rained heavily, letting go and at the same time gathering to give back.

A cycle. A loop.

Aiden shoved the thoughts away as the voice in his head laughed at the unfunny joke.

“Why did you come out here, though?” She asked in a soft, low voice. “Without any weapons or armor, did you…”

She tilted her head, and her eyes stared up at him, curious and concerned. Aiden’s breathing stuttered.

“Did you want to die?”

He didn’t want to acknowledge the tears that began to fall, careless of his wants as they drip like an off-set faucet, staining his clothes and the grass below. He tries to crack a smile or a laugh, but his futile attempts manifest in a sob, and he has to hide himself in his hands and sleeves as the dam breaks. He feels a hand - warm, smaller than his, _but not_ **_His_ **\- on his shoulder, brushing against his arm, hesitant and concerned, but he refuses to do anything about it. The boy can only gasp for breath as everything suddenly becomes a struggle, crashing on him, toppling over and leaving behind toxic dust.

“I loved him,” he says. It’s beyond him how coherent his words were to her, but he tries not to care. The words spill out of him before he can do anything about it. “I still love him, fucking dammit. Dammit!”

Two loops. It took him two loops and a half for him to break. It’s close enough to two years now, and this one difference, this one change, this one decision he made finally broke him. Not the months he spent in prison, not the destruction of Sky City, not anything else.

How fucked up did he have to be?

The scolding from the voice in his head is enough for a stronger, greater cry to escape him, and he cries, and cries because it’s too much, cries because he can barely breathe. By this point, Jesse’s arm is around him, rubbing circles as her gentle eyes lay on him. The girl beside him, the patient comfort, the _decency_ , the humanity, was so familiar to him, like something he’d lost too. But Maya’s name didn’t connect to it, and neither did Gill, nor Lukas.

It was beyond him, far from his reach, leaving him hollow and empty and yearning for it to come back; in much the same manner as he did Lukas.

(It’s been two years. Get over yourself.)

(Two _loops_. Shut up.)

“I’m sorry!” He cried. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I _want_ to change, I _want_ to fix things, but-”

But there’s no way. There’s no way to fix it, because he’s trapped. He’d re-lived the same events twice now, and the whole thing was coming to a third within a month.

Everything was _fine_. Two years ago, everything was fine, he and his friends were going to do another building competition, and if they lost Lukas would be there to help him calm down and accept that-

_except Lukas was already losing affection for him, wasn’t he?_

It was inevitable. Nothing he could’ve done would change the fact that at some point, Lukas would break up with him and abandon his two other friends in the process. He fully intended to just _leave_ , with no note, no talk, no explanation. The Witherstorm - 9”8=8@’# *4970 - was the wake-up call.

(As if that Storm didn’t hurt him enough.)

He felt cold, even in his jacket and socks and pajama pants and thick shoes. Yet the warmth was consistent, the sickly kind that made him uncomfortable in his own skin, no matter what he wore. His breathing was ragged and inconsistent, and he could barely take in any air before it was gone. To his rapidly beating heart, to his face warm with blood and tears, to his aching head and mind, to his cramped limbs.

It hurt so much. So much, so much, _so much_.

To the point that the pain was _indescribable_.

The rushing waters were the only unmoving, uninterrupted sound. The only thing heartless enough, soulless enough, to act with no empathy nor care for the people beneath it.

“I’m sorry, Aiden,” she whispered softly to him. Her voice was gentle in his ear, almost noiseless as he lay there, _pathetic_ , teary-eyed and breathless.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

There was no fixing it, because he was trapped. They both were.

No matter how much guilt consumed them, they could do nothing about it, they could nothing to fix their mistakes.

Their loved ones will never know how sorry they are.

(And it’s only been two loops.)

* * *

“I’m sorry.”

He apologized profusely when he calmed down enough, and continued to do so as he tried to deny her offer of a water bottle. But Jesse was relentless and stubborn, and very quickly he gave in to her insistence. He took the bottle in his hand gingerly, uncorking it and taking careful sips of ice-cold water. 

“You don’t have to apologize, Aiden,” she assured him gently. “I get it. I had emotional breakdowns at the start of these loops too.” Her eyes drifted from him to the lake before them, as if in reminiscence. Calloused, scarred hands distracted themselves with an empty glass bottle. “ _Tons_ of them,” she added with a chuckle.

Aiden shook his head, unable to even begin to understand. He wondered aloud, more to himself than her, “How did you do it?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t.”

Carefully avoiding Aiden’s gaze, she hung her head and looked down at her hands, at the cracked glass bottle that showed off the scars and calluses on the other side of the transparent wall. 

“I sort of just.. became numb to all of it. I told you before that I’d been stuck in these loops for the better part of a century, but you know how long these last. You’ve only gone through two loops, you’re going through your third now, and it’s already been a couple of years for you, hasn’t it?”

Aiden gulped, looking away momentarily. Jesse snickered humorlessly.

“Even a single loop already takes so long. The truth is,” she let out a laugh with trembling breath, “I have no idea how long I’ve been stuck here! It could’ve reached millenia at this point. Perhaps more! I wouldn’t know because-”

She shrugged. The smile that graced her face was thin, showing teeth but doing so along with tears that tracked down her cheeks, leaving stains behind as she left them alone, not bothering to wipe them away.

“Because I’ve already forgotten my life before the loops.”

The first thing Aiden knew was that statement shocked him completely and terrified him simultaneously. The second was that her tears were silent, _completely_. He couldn’t hear them beyond the rushing water, beyond her whimpers and murmured words. And her demeanor, hunched over with her hair falling over the sides of her head, was completely still otherwise; almost like a statue, or a doll left in one position, discarded, unmoving.

Beyond her words, she was noiseless and silent.

“I can’t remember much of life before the Witherstorm,” she admitted, “Reuben, Axel, Olivia— They’re just faraway memories to me. Like vague, foggy things that I can barely remember. Do you know the phenomenon wherein the more you try to remember something, the less accurate the details get?” She breathes a laugh as she looks up at him with her rhetorical question, tucking her hair behind her ear.

(The thin, broken smile on her face both unnerved him and made him feel a bout of sympathy towards her, remembering similar expressions on Gill’s and Maya’s an$ 9”8=8@’# fff&&&a@c+ee3Ees-

What?)

“I don’t want to forget anymore, but I feel like it’s already too late.”

For a moment, she breathed deeply, in and out, to the backing of the waterfall. Despite how loud and harsh it sounded, it was calming, the air cool and the wind rushing with the falling water; refreshing Aiden and keeping him cool and awake as he listened to the girl with him.

“Anyways, back to the original point-” she adjusted her position, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. “I’m sure I’ve lost my humanity before. I think I can remember it, faintly, but I know it happened. I’m not, like, immune to fucking up or that kinda thing.”

Jesse smiles at nothing, her eyes in a daze, burning red in the cool fog, as she continues to reminisce to the only person with her.

“I was alone, for the longest time. Every conversation I had with everybody felt so fake and unreal. Even during the grace periods. I’m-” she sniffled. Her voice began to tremble. “I’m usually close to Ivor, at least, I think I was; but I can’t even talk to him anymore. My closest, closest friends since spawn are now just _strangers_ to me. Petra, I was never even fond of to begin with, and Lukas was complicated.”

“How complicated?”

Jesse blinked, then gasped softly when she realized who she was talking to. She turned to Aiden with her mouth agape, about to apologize or say she didn’t mean anything by it; but he beat her to it, “I mean, like, how did he make it complicated?” He smiled at her with soft features, saying reassuringly, “Don’t worry, I know he’s not a perfect golden boy or anything. I’m- _was_ his boyfriend, not a white knight.”

“Pff,” Jesse cracked a smile- a genuine one, a **_human_ ** one. “I mean, I- I know I _did_ start to like him, somewhere down the line, but I never reciprocated anything; never really returned his flirting or said anything, be- because I thought it’d just be unethical, or something. Because of the timeloops.”

“Oh.”

He supposed he should have expected that. Truth be told, Aiden was actually far more surprised by the fact that he _wasn’t_ surprised, than the idea that Jesse reciprocated Lukas’ feelings. Even after she said at the festival that “there was nothing between them.”

‘I guess it’s partially true,’ he thought.

“Yeah,” she chuckled nervously, glancing away. “I did once, during the portal network, because I was so _lonely_ and desperate, I- I had to do something!”

Her eyes drooped again and her arms fell to her sides. She went limp.

“But I couldn’t even kiss him,” Jesse mumbled. “I think that was the most embarrassing loop I ever experienced.”

She chuckled again; and just like before, it held no humor, no genuine happiness. “These timeloops really fucked me up.”

“I-” Aiden had to drag the words out of the fog to say them, trying to understand everything she just let out.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say. She smiled despite the bittersweet red in her eyes.

“Don’t be. You shouldn’t have to apologize for anything with this. It’s neither yours nor my fault we’re in this timeloop.”

Jesse shrugged, returning her gaze to the pool. “Frankly, I’m- kind of happy you’re here? No offense!” She put a hand up, “I don’t wish this on anybody, but like- It’s sorta like mental illness, y’know?”

Aiden’s mouth fell open. Was she…?

“You don’t wish it upon anyone, but to know that somebody else has it too, and that you both aren’t alone in that suffering?”

Some semblance of hope flickered in her voice, but Aiden couldn’t tell if that was genuine or just him making up intonations in his head.

“The solidarity feels kinda nice.”

For once, Jesse’s expression matched her voice: sad. Everything about her, in that moment, was just pure, unadulterated sadness.

(Except, how unadulterated was it? Why was she sad in the first place? These loops had to have been caused by the hand of _somebody_ , right? Was it intentional?)

( **_Stop assuming things you’ll never get the answer to._ **)

* * *

When Aiden returned to the house, it was already sunrise. It already felt empty the closer he came to it, the same kind he recognized from when Lukas left and gone the past loops.

(So he already left. Typical.)

Upon entry, Aiden was met with relieved cries and a tall thing of leather and hair enveloping him in an embrace. Gill was in full-on hysteria, “Aiden, we were worried sick!!!” He exclaimed. He pulled away, though he gripped Aiden by the shoulders, desperate eyes boring into his dull ones. “Come fuckin’ on, man! You don’t just _leave us_ in the middle of the night! Especially after-” he sniffles, the tears hidden away falling carelessly now. His angered expression returns, though it’s weakened by the tear tracks and the trembling in his voice. “If you’re gonna leave us, don’t just _not_ leave an explanation.”

Maya cut in, then, gently prying Gill away from their last remaining friend. “We thought,” she bit her lip, though she never took her eyes away from Aiden’s. “We thought something might’ve happened to you.” She said. Her eyes were intense as she tried not to look away, her arms crossed over her chest. “We thought you-”

“Killed myself?” Aiden suggested with a weak smile. Gill shuddered and bowed his head, hugging himself and trembling. Maya’s mouth was left agape, her eyes wide; but she pursed her lips and nodded.

“Yeah. I know,” he sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Please-”

Gill wrapped him in another bear hug, his beard ruffling against Aiden’s neck as he held his friend close.

“Don’t do that,” he begged weakly. “Don’t leave like he did.”

Slowly, Aiden returned the embrace with one arm. The other reached out to Maya, brushing fingers with hers, pulling her in when she figured out the invitation was. It took her no time at all to blanket both her friends in her arms as best as she could.

“I promise I won’t leave you two behind.”

The loops take forever and yet no time at all.

Unlike Jesse, Aiden has to spend the remaining months of the loop in a prison cell, while extremely sick and weak, barely fed until Milo does something about it ten weeks in, while fainting and puking at random intervals at inconvenient places.

They aren’t bits he’s particularly fond of or excited to be reenacting, but he has no choice.

(Then again, he’d rather not re-live the Witherstorm or Sky City repeatedly to no end, but he has no choice in that either.)

All he can do is wait, starved and pained, for Jesse to reach the last day so that everything can reset again.

It’s almost annoying, if only for the fact that they’re the only time he has where everything is _quiet_. Where there’s no impending deadline for Lukas to break up with him, no point in time in which he should expect to suddenly tumble over in pain, no city to destroy at a specific time. All he had to do was sit and wait for the door to open, the opportunity to come to him.

(For lazy scum like him? That was easy enough.)

He could think in here, or he could be mindless and do nothing at all. He liked having those options.

In a way, prison was freeing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Number of Iterations: 4**


	5. watching the same cutscenes over and over gets boring after a while

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *revvs flamethrower* it's aidesse time folks

He found her again, a week before Sky City, at the very same waterfall.

“Do you just have no friends?”

Jesse turned to him, and cracking a grin when she heard his quip and saw his expression take a 180 as he tried to backtrack. “Yeah, basically!”

“ _Shit-_ sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“What? That I’d get hurt because I can’t really talk to my friends anymore?” She shrugged, “ _Pff_ , that’s fine, man. I got over it ages ago.”

(“That’s not what I got from you _crying_ that last time,” he thought to say.)

A skeptical huff and a shrug, “ _If you say so_.”

“I do say so. You’re already decked out, huh?”

She pointed at the straps he wore, the belts that wrapped over him and buckled and intersected at specific points. “Yeah,” he tugged at the one that went over his shoulder, loosening it more than it already was. When he looked back at her, her face was red from trying to stifle a laugh. “What?”

“It’s just-” she interrupted herself with a giggle and looked away briefly to cover her mouth. “You just look super silly in it, like- why the spikes?? Why the straps??? Are we back in 2008?”

Aiden sputtered, causing her to break into all-out laughter, frightening a few parrots from their trees. She had a hand over her stomach and another barely over her mouth as she tried to calm down, but the repetition of her own words to herself caused her to laugh harder. Aiden was red with embarrassment as he watched the display.

“ _For your information_ -” she failed to cover more giggles behind a gloved fist, “I _like_ straps, and since Lukas isn’t here anymore to cringe, I can wear whatever the fuck I want! ALSO- Stop laughing!”

Jesse was already leaning against a tree, trying to keep herself upright with a hand on the bark as she hunched over, breathing sparsely and heavily as she laughed at whatever mental image made itself known in her mind. Aiden grumbled and cleared his throat, as if trying (and failing) to get her to calm down.

“ALSO if this were ‘2008’ I’d be wearing fucking _eyeliner_ enough to look like a panda!”

At that, Jesse broke into cackles, while Aiden cursed at giving her that exact mental image. She clapped, as if applauding the hilarity, as she dropped to the ground from the trunk of the tree. Her eyes landed on him once more, and her face could nearly split from the wide grin as she laughed, “You’re so red!!”

“Did you listen to any word I just said right now!?!?”

* * *

“Okay, but seriously, why the straps?”

Aiden grumbled at the question and facepalmed. Seeing his exasperation made Jesse nearly fall over into another fit of laughter, but it manifested in just a giggle this time. She was calmer now that he allowed her several minutes to take a breather. They sat together at the foot of the waterfall, the same spot as last time; though now both were armored and equipped with weapons, and the sun was only starting to lower itself into the horizon, to the other side of the world.

“It was Maya’s design. After Lukas left, she basically went on a rampage on the nearest group of animals, and for the next week we had inventories chock-full of beef and leather,” he shrugged, “so we put it to good use.”

Jesse snorted, stifling a giggle, “Good use being kinky leather straps-”

“ _Oh my god-_ ”

“Okay! Okay okay okay I’m gonna stop now!” She raised both hands as she wheezed, surrendering. “Stopping now! Stopping with the humor. Shutting my mouth.”

He gave her a half-hearted glare, which she responded to with mischievous eyes and her tongue sticking out of an equally mischievous smile.

(But this felt natural, didn’t it? This was nothing short of a replica of how they used to be, during and outside of the competitions, when they met at random and threw insults and jeers back and forth at each other. The banter was familiar in that way, bringing back old, faint memories Aiden was _sure_ he lived, but could hardly remember clearly.

He knows they happened though, that there was a life before the timeloops.

The relief he felt manifested into a warm smile, his features melting into it as he dropped his gaze down to the rippling waters.

Jesse did much the same.)

“Hey,” Jesse started, “about that earlier bit back then, about me having no friends-”

Aiden flinched, “I’m so sorry-”

“No! No, Aiden, it didn’t hurt, I promise!” She raised a hand to stop him, “Really, that’s fine. I’m just wondering why you said that, of all things.”

“Oh.”

The boy in straps fumbled with the grass beneath his hands, picking up a small, smooth stone. He weighed it, his eyes resting upon it. “It’s just that... after Lukas left, the three of us- me, Gill, and Maya -we promised to never leave each other behind, ever. Not like he did.”

It fit nicely in his palm.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re gonna glue ourselves to each other, but…"

He closed his eyes with a sigh and shrugged. “I dunno. I just thought it was odd that I almost never see you with any of the New Order after Lukas’ breakup. And the three of us did a lot of investigating these past few months to find that Eversource temple.”

His brows furrowed in thought, and cracked an eye open to the girl beside him.

“I’m not making any sense here, am I?”

“I know there’s a point to what you’re saying,” Jesse said with a shrug, “I’m just not gonna make any assumptions.”

He breathed a laugh. Fair.

“I was just thinking about, eugh, _alone time_ , I guess. I still love them, they’re my best friends, but something about these loops makes them feel unreal sometimes; especially the moments that are consistent through the loops.” Slowly, he opened both eyes, being greeted by the small lake, the water’s reflections and the fog being tinged under the purple-orange hue of the sunset. “I don’t know how I can handle that when we’re all we have basically from the Witherstorm onwards. First the break up, then Sky City, then _prison_ …”

Jesse, who’s brought her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them again, hummed while closing her eyes. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” She looked up at him as she recalled her own experiences with the timeloops. He pointedly kept his gaze away, reddening from the feeling of her eyes resting on him.

To both his relief (and disappointment?), she looked down at the waters before them, the connection between the waterfall and the lake. “I had the same issue before, and I guess I still kinda do. Even during these grace periods, I barely have enough time alone from my friends. Having those fake conversations just felt more isolating to me.”

“How did you fix it?”

“Sometimes, I just slept through most of their conversations,” she said with a humorous smile. Aiden raised a brow, amused. “When we weren’t adventuring or fighting, just camping and waiting the night out, I’d sleep. If I couldn’t do that, I guess I’d just direct the conversation to things we hadn’t talked about before.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But I think I coped well enough with it.” Just then, she turned and looked to him, her demeanor suddenly brightening, “But hey! You’ve got a better chance at avoiding that, now! You’re not alone in these loops like I was.”

“You really think it makes a difference?”

“Only if you let it.”

Even without him “letting it,” it seemed to by itself. Sitting here, talking with Jesse, here at the waterfall, felt so much more different than talking with Maya or Gill; or Isa, Milo, Reginald, _whoever_ . It already felt refreshing. He actually felt _alive_ , like something was really happening for once. Something that wasn’t the script, something that wasn’t him wallowing in angst over Lukas’ departure. His regrets, his broken relationships, hurt far too much for him to dwell on, in prison or otherwise. His chest hurt and he had to lie down and do nothing every time it happened. He would have to try to breathe and stomach any food he had to eat, _force_ himself to eat as his appetite (or lack thereof) made the slug in his system dampen his energy.

And he didn’t want to be numb. He didn’t want to become apathetic to his friends’ struggles. He _had_ to be there for them, even though he knew every word they were going to vent. They were going to be stuck with him for Sky City anyway, the mechanics of the loops make sure of that. He couldn’t just abandon them because of some “fake conversation” he felt like he was stuck in.

He had a life before these loops. He wasn’t in a play. These were and are still actual, real people he was interacting with, even if it didn’t feel that way to him.

(But what if they’re fake?)

**_(STOP IT.)_ **

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

“Do you think,” he bit his lip, nervous over what he was about to ask, “Do you think we could hang out like this more?”

It was almost like a switch was turned on, as her face, her expression brightened immediately, beaming with an open grin. “Sure thing!”

A small smile made its way to his lips; and even though he was still anxious, he felt relief.

He didn’t want to be alone.

Their meeting at the Eversource temple may have had more eager banter between them; if the slight smirk and glint in Jesse’s eyes were anything to go by.

* * *

Prison was the same.

He grumbled softly to himself in frustration when he lost count, again, of how many days it’s been since he was arrested. 14? 40? It got mixed up while he was throwing up all over the mineshaft floor. His stomach was completely empty now, his throat dry and his appetite ruined.

At least the only good thing now was that he had a bed. He didn’t have a bed before. Had Jesse come in and made an intervention when he wasn’t looking?

He sighed. Whatever it was, the answer was likely beyond him as she was too busy adventuring to the end of the loop.

Feeling faint and drained, he lay down, careful not to disturb whichever of his intestines decided to be sensitive, and he closed his eyes.

He didn’t realize he fell asleep until he woke up to the same black void, with the red gridlines, and a “scream” that sounded more like a dull, disinterested vocalisation. Blinking sleep away, he got up with a soft grunt, coughing as he did. By the time he was somewhat upright, it had stopped, and he felt a familiar presence standing by his bedside.

“Did I wake you?” Jesse asked. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. I think I woke up by myself.” The man blinked slowly, still feeling crinkly and drowsy from earlier. Jesse was leaning against an invisible wall next to his bed, her arms folded across her chest. Her mouth was a thin line as she looked on at the black-and-red horizon, bangs a fanned mess over her forehead and her eyes. Dirt and some unknown substance were smeared all over her armor. The woman squirmed and shifted.

He frowned. “Why’d you pause?”

“Pause what?” She grinned cheekily, “My screaming?”

“Wh- No!” He gestured around, “I mean why’d you pause the loop?”

Jesse’s face fell, and she looked away. “I kept dying.”

His eyes widened, then narrowed in confusion. “ _What_?”

She shrugged, “I kept dying! Y’know, dying? Dying and then waking up a few moments before I died so I can try again? I’m sure I explained it to you before.”

He could barely remember.

“I think I forgot.”

“ _Ugh_ \- that’s fine.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Anyway, I kept dying, and I’m annoyed. Do you mind if I hang here for a bit?”

“Sure, but- what about the overwhel-”

“I’ve got nine hours left still, it’s fine.”

“Oh, okay.”

They sat in silence. Jesse continued to stand at his bedside, evening her breaths in an attempt to calm down. She fidgeted and did little things, tapping her foot and closing her eyes from time to time.

Aiden was much the same, although for different reasons.

Try as he might, he couldn’t mimic Jesse’s comfortable air in their conversations. Even as he’d already gone through these first few loops, he couldn’t quite yet grasp the confidence to make a quip without immediately backtracking in apologies; to say anything that could bring up a bad memory. Any conversation he held with anybody else, he couldn’t replicate with her; because he felt like he wasn’t allowed to.

So what if she was fine with him now? It felt like some universal law ruled that he wasn’t allowed to start anything with the woman who he provoked and was subsequently, _rightfully_ , defeated by.

It wasn’t pride, it was. . .

Guilt.

(But I already said sorry, shouldn’t that be enough? I did mean it, right?)

(Shut your ass, arrogant prick.)

He bit his lip, unsure and tearing up.

As inconspicuous as he could, he wiped his eyes with his dirty sleeve, and turned his head slightly to the woman beside him.

“Hey, Jesse?”

“Yeah?”

Her answer came casually.

(See? She’s fine with us.)

(Stop assuming.)

“Are you okay?”

The woman’s head turned to him swiftly, furrowed brows accompanying a small frown. She hadn’t expected that kind of question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean in general,” Aiden shrugged, trying to remain cool and calm. “I was just wondering- considering you’ve been in these loops for way longer, even before I got here. _Are you okay?_ ”

Jesse stared, mouth slightly parted. Even as there was no source of light in the void, her eyes were visibly glistening, faint, almost unseen tears beginning to well. Aiden shifted, silently trying to signal her to them, and to do _something_ about the tears; but she turned her head away and let her hair fall to cover her like a curtain.

From his bed, he looked up at the warrior, worried he’d done something wrong, wondering if she really wasn’t okay.

A sob escaped her.

“Obviously not.” An empty laugh came out like a gasp for breath, and with it, she trembled; though even from where he sat, he had to have really paid attention to see. “I guess you could tell, huh?”

She turned back to him, then, and let him see her wobbly smile, her tear-streaked face covered in scars, smeared with charcoal and dirt. Blood-red eyes looked into the pale, light-green. “I-” but she choked. She closed her eyes and breathed a laugh, progressively sobbing harder as she sunk to the floor. Her head was buried in her knees.

“It’s hard to be okay with this,” she continued. She’d lifted her head and cried softly, though there were barely any tears. Jesse stared at nothing, far beyond his bed, beyond the texture-less horizon; as if she wasn’t looking at any tangible _thing_ , but a memory. An image only she could see; invisible, projected onto an unseen wall.

“I started these loops alone, and with no guide, no tutorial, and no company. None of my friends could help me when I told them during the grace periods. Finding out about the Pause consequence was a fucking nightmare. And everything else?” She shook her head, “It just became so boring. I became numb to everything, it was hard to be invested anymore. For several years I was just an asshole to everyone- well,” she chuckled bitterly. “Far more than I normally was. And all just because I couldn’t take the same, stupid old story anymore.”

She let out a heavy sigh, obviously deeply ashamed of herself. “I forgot to be human.”

Jesse held her palms out, open for her tears to fall unto. Calluses, scars, dried blood, graffitied her once smooth skin. Her gloves, which lay on her lap, were torn through, hastily fixed with stitches that were tearing apart. She cracked a smile as she tried to keep another sob. Tears escaped her closed, shut eyes.

“Sometimes, I wonder if I even am human. Because how could I be? I’ve spent so many years, _countless years_ , trapped in this loop, with no real human contact. Has time really passed, or has my body just stopped aging? Was I ever even alive? I’ve doubted the last of my memories countless times, and even now, I can’t help but wonder if I was ever even real.”

She pulled her knees closer to her chest, resting her chin on them as she childishly rocked herself forwards and backwards. Her eyes flickered towards Aiden, going back and forth between him and the waves of red passing through the grid.

“No offense, but how do I even know _you’re_ real?”

Having the question directed at him and not the other way around caught Aiden off-guard.

“How do I know you aren’t just a figment of my imagination, or some illusion somebody else made up for me? To use on me, against me? It’s selfish and arrogant, but…” She sighed and lay her head on her arms. “That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

Her eyes finally rested on him. “What say you?”

Aiden was speechless. He blinked rapidly, in surprise, trying to catch up. “I-”

He squirmed on his bed, holding his arms and tightening and loosening his grip.

“You know,” he looked back to her, “you aren’t alone in that. Thinking like, ‘what if everyone around me is fake?’ And that kinda shit? I think that too sometimes. It sucks.”

Jesse chuckled, in relief and solidarity. “Doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. And- excuse me for this, but,” he shrugged, “I think it’s fine that you’re thinking that. First of all, no single person is completely selfless, we’re all selfish in some way. That’s human nature. Arrogance too. We can’t help that.”

The woman frowned. “Yes we can.”

Aiden’s brows furrowed, “No, we can’t. We’ve only been living our own lives, switching points of view is impossible.” As he continued, he leaned against the wall of his cell, “Sure, we can work on being less arrogant, to be humble and shit. That’s totally fine. All I’m saying is that it’s not our fault that we, as humans, inherently _are_.”

He looked back to her, whose eyes never left him. “So it’s fine and valid that you’ve been thinking that way, and you’re helping yourself even more by being self-aware about it. So,” he shrugged, “y’know, you’re good.”

He waited for a reaction from her, as she stared at him, wide-eyed and unblinking. Her tears have dried, no more fell from her eyes, and all that were left were faint streaks lining like cracks all over broken porcelain.

A small smile broke through.

“Thanks, Aiden,” she says. Her smile widens slightly, showing teeth. “That actually helped.”

She adjusted herself as Aiden smiled, relieved. “I’m glad.”

“You said first of all,” she added as she sat more casually. She looked more relaxed, as her features softened and her smile seemed to be natural, effortless on her lips. “Did you have more to say?”

“Wh-” he blinked, then looked away in embarrassment when he remembered. “Oh. It’s just that- I was gonna say: you were alone in these loops for a- a _really_ long time. And, y’know, loneliness does things to people. With nobody by your side, when all you have to talk to are your thoughts and yourself, you can change.”

His eyes drifted down to his wounded hands, spread open on his lap; tracing the prints of blood to the holes in his sleeves, revealing faint traces of scars and bruises beneath, both old and new.

“You can change for the better or worse,” he said conclusively, and forced himself to look away. “Loneliness does that to you.”

If he could see Jesse’s expression, which he avoided as he felt her eyes on him, he’d have flushed on how she looked at him in admiration.

“What about you?” She prompted in a gentle voice, “Are you lonely?”

After several moments of staring at nothing, staring beyond his scars, he lifted his head once more and met her eyes; and he managed to form a small smile.

“Right now? Not at all.”

Several minutes later, after she unpaused the loop, she paused it again and came back to him, and thanked him profusely for his help. “Talking about it and getting it off my chest actually helped a ton,” she said with a grin, “And you actually comforted me then, so thank you.”

He found that it took no effort at all to smile back.

“You’re welcome, Jesse.”

* * *

She paused the loop every now and then to visit him in prison, through the void. They would talk about whatever was on their minds, share what had just happened that day; the things they never got to do before while the vitriol between their groups was still strong and high.

Aiden never complained, because what reason did he have to? Having company in solitary confinement, getting to have new, real conversations, was something he missed during the first few loops.

(He can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for Jesse, to have had that but for so much longer. _Thousands_ of years longer.)

He was just glad she was taking the time of day to actually pause the loops, effectively increasing the amount of time she’d have to live through, just to talk to him; of all people. Granted, he supposed she had no choice in the matter, considering he was the only other person conscious through the loops; but it felt nice.

Sometimes, Jesse would bring something cool she found in a new world she was exploring. She told him once, “The best thing about the grace periods in the Portal Network is that I can mostly explore any world I want.” She’d talk about the worlds she visited and where the memento came from, telling him stories and waving her arms around exaggeratedly while he examined a hollowed-out white pumpkin; or an actual, legitimate conduit; or a flower one could only find in that one world.

“I’m only limited to twelve particular portals,” she explains, “and now that I know how to speedrun through each adventure, I have free reign over what I get to do with the other portals! And there are _so many_ ,” she gushed. Her eyes seemed to _sparkle_ as she talked about these worlds, about the freedom she has in these moments. 

As she rambles on, her voice is soft, almost floaty in reminiscence or nostalgia; but the pain is still there, the _longing_ is still there, remaining through everything. “It’s one of the cooler things I get to have in these loops.” She smiled bittersweetly as she held the newest treasure in her hands, “When I go through these other portals and have these adventures I never experienced before… things actually start feeling real again. Just for a moment.”

Aiden doesn’t know what to say to any of that. All he could do was sit there, enamored, drawn in and held there by her company, her admirable perseverance. He listened, beyond the fact that she was the only person he could have real conversations with, besides the fact that she was the only person he could talk to in prison. The more she came to visit him, the more he realized how wrong he was to hate her and envy her before.

The more time he spent with her, the more familiar he becomes with her presence and company, the easier it became for him to accept that; to accept that he was wrong.

(She already accepted his apology anyway. It’s okay.)

So he sits there and listens, and that’s okay. Jesse doesn’t need him to say anything.

“Thanks for humoring me, Aiden,” she says sincerely during one of her visits. They sit together, in his gridline-covered cell, with what she proclaimed to be ‘the best cookies and sandwiches in all the multiverse.’ “I don’t like the fact that somebody else is suffering these loops, but I’ve _missed_ human contact so much, and you know what? You’re not the worst.”

(Her smile was contagious.)

She was blunt. She was _very_ straightforward about everything she said, catching Aiden off-guard at no shortage of times and making him question whether he should have been offended or flattered; but that was refreshing to him.

Prison was a little less unbearable with each visit. He’d often catch himself looking forward to the next time she paused the loop and came over, and sometimes he’d try to stop himself, because how selfish could he be? How arrogant could he be?

But other times, he’d let himself be hopeful. He’d cherish that rare warmth, keep it close to his heart as his illness tortured him once more. Even if it would hurt.

Because he woke up in bed, next to Lukas, and realized all of that occurred in only one loop, and that there were plenty more, _endless more_ to go. A feeling of heavy despair took him over in that instance, but it came alongside an eagerness to spend more time with Jesse, to fill the void with something he didn’t have before.

He wanted to cling to that feeling of hope for as long as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Number of Iterations: 6**


	6. "mom can i go to jesse's house?" "no" ":("

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i could honestly just change the name of this fic to "a compilation of mistakes" and it wouldnt really make much of a difference because everyone's making mistakes here. I'm making mistakes, aiden's making mistakes, jesse's making mistakes
> 
> hey, have you ever heard of anagrams?

Aiden hadn’t expected Jesse to _actually_ visit him in prison, in person, outside of the Paused void; but she did, and it was… actually nice. It was his turn to do most of the talking, as she kept asking him questions, shrugging off anything he had to ask about her portal adventures. 

(“Hey, they didn’t give us beds before, not in any previous loop,” he started in a hushed voice, “Was that-?”

“Oh,” she laughed, “Yeah, that was me. Sorry. I hope that’s okay with you!”

“No- no, actually, it’s- it’s more than okay. I actually wanted to say thank you.”

“You’re welcome!”)

The hour had flown by fast, to the point that he found himself wanting her to stay, almost getting up from his seat abruptly to ask; but the imposing presence of the guard behind him kept him from making any sudden moves. Right before she left, she sent a smile his way. He meekly returned it.

Ten days later, his solitary confinement was cut short, and he was returned to the same cellblock as his friends (who would have greeted him with bone-crushing hugs if they still weren’t separated by bars). It took him an entire 24 hours to realize that this happened for every loop, and the transfer was not another intervention by Jesse. “Way to go, ruining my internal schedule,” he thought humorously.

But he sat in his cell, watching the moonlight stream in through the iron bars and cover the cellblock in a soft hue, and he had to wonder: where was Lukas during all of that?

He tried to make the thought go away, but it stayed, stubborn and angry; and the unanswered question nagged at him the rest of the night.

It never went away. It just retreated to the back of his mind, whispering quietly, chanting ritualistically. “Where was Lukas? Did he care if we did or didn’t have beds? Did he ever want to visit?”

( _“Hopefully they dig a deep hole, bury them in it, surround it with lava…”_ )

...It shouldn’t hurt so much, but it does.

* * *

As much as it pained Aiden every time something came along to prompt him or his friends to go look for the Eversource, each iteration taught him more and more about the loops he was stuck in.

Nine loops in, he realized that there was a reason the Eversource was introduced to his group in so many different, unpredictable ways in each iteration. Jesse could recite to him the entire script of the looping months, knew it like the back of her hand, from the set events to even the grace periods. For her, nothing was sacred. Every minute detail was important in some capacity, and there were only two or three variations of ways one thing could lead to another.

But for him?

The Eversource was introduced to him through a patron at a bar, through a book Gill found at a library, through a Villager trading with Maya; through a visit to Beacontown, through a mining trip or a wandering trader. There were so many ways for something to happen to him, in stark contrast to the few options Jesse herself had.

The reason for why that was was beyond him, but he hypothesised that particular moments - specifically their interactions at the Building Competition, Endercon, the Eversource temple, and Sky City - were the only times in which he was bound by a script. And while he did spend most of prison sitting around and doing nothing, no two iterations were quite the same. Time was lost to him during that period, but his first week in prison was easiest to remember - and while on the second day of prison he was just starting community service hours, in one iteration he was helping rebuild; in another, he was farming; the next loop it was mining, so on and so forth.

It might not have been much, but it was a good enough point of reference for him to get the gears in his brain turning.

On the tenth loop, after the storm, he decided to try it out.

A week after Lukas broke up with him, before he, Gill, or Maya could “find out” about the Eversource naturally, he asked as they ate lunch, “Do you want to go back to some old competition, for old times’ sake?” And he explained the Eversource, and he told them the directions he knew by heart, and when they asked how he knew, he told them, “Oh, a wandering trader.” Even though he met no such trader in the past week.

And he wasn’t punished for it.

They went along with it. He only had to show them the temple once, explain the plans of the New Order, and the entire month and a half before the actual Sky City excursion were completely free of any schedule for him. Stitching the blaze rods patches and enchanting their swords came easily to him as a result of doing it all over and over again; he could accomplish all of that in less than a week.

By being the one to bring the Eversource to the table, with information he couldn't have had in the sense of a linear timeline, he got himself a free schedule and eradicated any contrived temple hunts. He basically figured out a way to “speedrun” the grace period, as Jesse would call it; starting and taking out the precursor of the set timeline pieces earlier than if the starter were triggered naturally.

Thinking on it further during his free time, he felt both pride for figuring that out, and horror for having become so accustomed to what were months of emotional pain to him that he could cheat his way through it.

“Unfortunate, and fortunate, side effects of the loops,” Jesse laments, after he explains everything to her. “Don’t worry too hard on it, Aiden,” she says casually with a pat on his back.

(He decides to leave the feelings alone, realizing he can’t do anything about them.)

“You know, I can do the same thing too, if you want,” she continues.

“What do you mean?”

“Speedrun the grace periods.”

Aiden raised a brow, prompting her to continue.

“I told you before about the twelve specific portals I absolutely have to get through, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, well; I don’t _have_ to go to different portals in between each specific one. All I have to do is adhere to the order in which I have to enter them, and everything is fine. As long as I follow the order, it doesn’t matter if I visit five more or ten more, or none at all. I could finish the portal network really quickly and loop back to the beginning in less than a month.”

“Wait, really? Why don’t you do that more?”

Jesse shrugged, “Because it gets boring and, well, you know how much it sucks to repeat the same thing over and over again. Variety is nice.”

Then she looked up at him and brought up what he felt he didn’t have the confidence or right to. “But I can stop, if you want. I can speedrun the portal network if you don’t want to spend anymore time in prison than you have to.”

Could he do that? Could he ask her to go through the same thing repeatedly, just so he could get out or prison faster?

After everything she told him?

“I’ll get back to you on that,” he said eventually, hesitantly; and the subject was dropped.

* * *

The mundane nature of the time they spend together is something Aiden is actually thankful for. Out of context, they’d just seem like two people getting to know each other more and spending time together for the sake of it. Without the time loops or their histories attached, that’s all they’d be.

He couldn’t complain. He couldn’t think of any reason _to_ complain. Having these natural, regular conversations he didn’t have before with Jesse, was actually fun.

It was a normalcy he grew to miss as each iteration passed.

“So what’s your favorite animal?” He asks her once. A normal, boring question, but those were the ways to get closer to somebody, right?

Besides, they couldn’t have a philosophical discussion _every_ time they met. He’d drain himself of brain cells.

“Y’know, I actually really like rabbits!”

“Yeah? I’m surprised.”

Not the answer that he was expecting, but he listened eagerly anyway.

“Oh, hell yeah!” Jesse beamed, “I think they’re super cute. Just like- these tiny, really fluffy, balls of monsters. _Fucking_ adorable! Understand that I loved Reuben, he’s the best, but like- pigs aren’t my favorite animal, he just happens to be the only one I made friends with. Otherwise?” She waved her hand with a snicker, “Bunnies all the way, man.”

 _Really_ not the answer he was expecting at all. He breathed a laugh in surprise as she gushed over her favorite animal. “I had a stuffed toy, Axel gave it to me for my birthday, I think; years before the Witherstorm. It was his and patched together with different colors and stuff.”

Her voice was warm and casual with nostalgia, memories resurfacing temporarily to offer them this moment. She chuckled, “It was super old and the stuffing fell out sometimes, but I absolutely loved it.”

Then the sadness seeped into her smile as she looked down at the untouched, rippling waters.

Something went unsaid.

“What about you?” She suddenly asked him. As if a switch was flicked to the other side, her sad disposition went away, masked by something else, some casual curiosity. “Any favorite animal?”

“Oh, cats, easy.”

“That so?”

“Yeah! I think there’s just something about how chill and almost human they are with how they act that I find funny, and.. kinda admirable,” he chuckles, “I think they’re fun. But, ah- I have a soft spot for wolves.”

“That’s cool!”

For awhile, it was okay.

Then she asks, “Hey, Aiden, did you ever have a pet?”

He almost freezes when she asks, feels himself go cold, in a way that was colder than the night air (he should have expected this), colder than the waters of the falls or the lake (shouldn’t have mentioned). He suddenly felt like he’d been dipped into a numb void.

Jesse didn’t fail to notice this sudden change in demeanor.

“I- I ask, because you mentioned before how you knew how much it hurt to lose an animal companion. So.. did you?”

She asked hesitantly, slowly and carefully.

He had to remind himself that she meant no harm.

“I did,” he said with hitched breath. He internally cursed himself and continued, slowly, “But- I- don’t wanna talk about it. Yet.” He looked away in shame as he trembled, begging whatever god on high to have mercy on him and get rid of the numb feeling in his limbs, the ache in his head.

(The emptiness called to him once again.)

Much to his relief, Jesse quickly backed down. She nodded in understanding. “Okay, I won’t pry.”

But it’s already too late. Thoughts and memories and regrets begin piling themselves high into the sky at the forefront of his mind, and it’s all he can think about.

Very soon, the wintry air is reduced to a grieving silence. Not a sign of tension, no pressure.

Just grief.

Aiden could almost chuckle bitterly to himself aloud, if he wasn’t trying to keep himself from crying.

He’d answered, “Yes,” without even saying it.

* * *

During another one of her visits, a calm silence as they ate in his cell, she asked him suddenly, “Hey, you wanna come over sometime?”

He stared at her in bewilderment, questions silenced only by his need to chew. She stared at him expectantly, eyes wide and blinking slowly, as if she was oblivious to the ridiculousness of her question.

Gulping down his food, he wasted no time in asking, “Come over where?”

“To the temple! The New Order temple!” She answered with a grin. Aiden frowned.

Can she even hear herself? “What about your friends? They can’t see us together-”

“Oh,” Jesse scoffed lightheartedly with a wave of her hand, “I have this secret little hiding spot in the temple, it’s kinda like my office. I’m the only one who stays there, I don’t allow anybody else in.” She beamed, “Nobody’ll find you in there! Wanna come?”

“...Sure???”

Aiden didn’t know if he should have been excited or terrified.

* * *

Aiden had never been inside the Order’s temple, but he’d seen the exterior of the building plenty of times already. What he recognized as the large shelter from the conclusion of the Witherstorm disaster, which housed so many survivors, him included, during the relief efforts; was now fortified with iron blocks and gold and several kinds of stone; instead of just cobble and wood. Standing at four stories, it was more than enough to house the New Order of the Stone.

(He remembers being frustrated by the implications of ego in turning the shelter into a temple, and feeling the same with Sky City’s supposed “limited resources” in their iron-and-gold home, both of which fueled his envy and rage.

Thinking about what he knew of Jesse now, and the crowds pf hyped-up fans that surrounded them everytime they returned to town, he thinks there might be more to that than he knew before.)

He waited at a tree behind the temple, behind the whole of Beacontown, watching and waiting for the iron door to open. It clearly stood out against the smooth stone wall surrounding the town, but there was no sign of a trigger to open it. If any were hidden under something like a flower pot, he didn’t move to check. Jesse directed him here, at this spot, to hide and wait for her to come pick him up.

Considering her friends still lived in the temple, he didn’t mind. He didn’t want to be caught dead by any of them even inside or around town, anyway.

(Not by Lukas.)

He just hoped none of _his_ friends found him here waiting. He didn’t trust his own skill at lying when it came to them.

At the sound of a button, he hid instinctively, and peeked at the door; only revealing himself when he saw Jesse standing at the doorway. Upon meeting, she waved enthusiastically and let him inside. “Follow me,” she whispered, and tugged at his sleeve once before walking ahead of him. Her steps were silent, almost effortlessly so, against the grass and, eventually, the decorative floors. She walked quickly and quietly, Aiden at her tail-end, until they reached a birch door, at the end of the left hall, right next to a large flight of stairs going up.

Aiden gaped in exasperation.

“I thought you said it’s secret!” He exclaimed in a stage whisper. Jesse’s expression was indignant, “It is!”

“There’s a sign right there that says “COOL DOODS ONLY TRESPASSERS WILL BE PUNISHED,” in red ink!!”

To emphasize his point, he gestured wildly to said sign, exasperation written all over his face.

Jesse huffs, “Okay, fine, maybe it’s not a secret, but it’s _my_ secret-secret! Secret office!”

The grin on her face was wide, and only received a skeptical, raised brow. Her expression did not falter. “I can guarantee after thousands of loops worth of experience that _nobody_ comes in here!” She proclaimed proudly, “They know to knock when I’m in here.”

“How do they know you’re in here?”

Jesse promptly took out from her inventory a paper reading “OCCUPIED” and slapped it on the item frame he didn’t see until now. Aiden blinked.

“Come on, you’ll be fine!” She took his sleeve again and moved to open the door, “If anybody comes knocking, I’ll hide you away, easy-peasy.”

“What if you have a job to do?”

“Pff- Aiden, man,” she grinned lazily, almost in a smug manner, at him, “You underestimate my power. I have memorized the entire schedule of every day of every month. I know when I’m busy.”

Right. He forgot.

“Now come on,” she nudged the door to open wider, “Petra’s gonna come in a few minutes and I wanna get this paperwork done.”

“What????”

“Oh, just come in here.”

She pulled him inside and promptly shut the door, loud and sure to leave a resounding echo in the walls of the temple. Aiden whined as his nervousness increased with every casual, indiscreet thing she did. Jesse covered the door up with two cobblestone blocks and dropped a shulker box on the floor next to an extremely low table. Looking now, Aiden realized there weren’t any chairs inside at all.

It wasn’t too big of a room, about the size of a lounge, if a lounge were decorated like a young spawn’s bedroom while splurging on wool. There were two red beds next to each other, two long chests on opposite sides of the room, a closet, a loom, and a jukebox. Lavender carpets covered the entire floor, with just an orange-and-yellow knitted rug to contrast the soft palette of the rest of the room. White and light pink wool made up the walls; except for one. One wall, to the right of the door upon entry, was made of obsidian, and completely covered in empty item frames.

“Don’t mind that,” she said from her desk. “I used to use that while I was trying to find a way out of the loops, but it’s completely obsolete now.”

He turned to look at her, as she tapped her chin with furrowed brow. “Come to think of it, I don’t know why I keep making that wall. I stopped trying a long time ago.”

Aiden frowned. “Sorry, but do you know how concerning nearly everything you say sounds?”

She laughs and flips open a book on the wood slab, twirling the quill in her free hand as she reached for the shulker box with the other. “Touché. Sorry about that.” The woman took a second to look up at him with a casual smile, “You can sit down, by the way. There’re bean bags in the chest by the loom if you want an actual seat.”

Aiden with no idea how to respond, merely said in a bit of a whine, “Oh. Okay, uh- thanks.”

“Of course!”

Navigating through blankets and wool an an unfinished stuffed rabbit (which Aiden, for a split second, mistakenly thought was the spawn of satan), Aiden found a bean bag. He took it out, huffing as he struggled with the amorphous thing of rice and cloth, and dropped it unto the floor.

Just then, true to her word, a knock came at the door. Aiden paled and had to stifle a scream as Petra’s muffled voice came muffled through, “Jesse?”

He immediately looked to her in a panic. Jesse, while alert, was calm and collected. She cocked her head towards the closet as she moved to the cobblestone with a pickaxe in hand; giving him no time to waste on the open chest and the out-of-place bean bag, to sprint to the closet and hide himself inside. It was surprisingly empty.

“We’re leaving soon. Are you sure you don’t wanna come?” He heard Petra say.

“Nah, you guys go ahead.” Jesse said casually, “I’m not really looking forward to sea-faring today. You know how I am with swimming.”

“Ivor’s stocked an entire shulker box’s worth of breathing potions, are you sure?”

“As much as I love the guy, potions taste like shit, no matter who makes them.”

Petra chuckled and pat Jesse’s shoulder in a friendly manner. “Okay. We’ll see you soon!”

“Uhuh. Have fun fishing!”

Footsteps, then the door closed; and the sound of cobblestone blocks being put down.

“She’s gone. You can come out now.”

Sighing in relief, Aiden opened the closet doors and took a big gulp of air as he stumbled out, trying to get the scent of acacia wood out of his senses. He clamored toward the desk and collapsed on the bean bag dramatically, now several feet away from the wooden closet.

“You okay?” She asks with a smirk.

He grumbles, “I hate acacia wood.” He sits up properly this time, resting his arms on his knees as he watches Jesse return to her work. “Did you just sit out an adventure? I thought you guys went everywhere together?”

She chuckles, “No, we don’t. Sometimes one of us is too busy with something else, or we just wanna sit one out for awhile for whatever reason. I did both today, I always do in every loop.” As if to demonstrate how busy she was, she turned a page and made quick work of her quill, seamlessly writing, glancing between papers filled to the brim with ineligible ink, and chatting with him all at once. “Besides, today’s adventure was a sea temple, which ended up going unfinished because all of them were low on health and potion. They only came back with a sponge Olivia insisted on grabbing.”

She glanced up at him, “And if it matters to you, Axel’s the only one still here, but he lives in the east wing and never leaves his room, so he has no idea you’re here.”

Aiden blinked. “ _Huh._ ”

“Yeah.” She looked up to him and smiled casually, “So, how’re you liking the temple?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~i, as a dog-lover, apologize profusely for i have never interacted with a cat im very scared of hurting one i dont want to get near one pls forgib 4 writing~~
> 
> **Number of Iterations: 12**


	7. make the jukebox yourself and relive everything in your mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey remember those tags about suicide?  
> it's never too late to get off the ride!
> 
> context:  
> [this oneshot.](https://www.deviantart.com/coughandcolds/art/Jukebox-753516684) if the link doesn't work, here's the [google doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12DLBbrqhzQ9S9mb_YLZeiSS0fO1QhDM4peu_zey4jwM/edit?usp=sharing)
> 
> additional context:  
> the shows we have are audio plays in their world okok fight me- no just dont ask

Rummaging through the chests (with her permission) and finding all kinds of seemingly useless junk and memorabilia, he asked, “So do you just spend all your free time in here?”

“In here-? Oh, no. It’s different every time, but my more consistent hiding spots are here, in the den, and that waterfall you always find me at. I think those are my safe spaces.”

Aiden paled, bit his lip upon hearing about the waterfall. He turned to her slightly, “I’m not intruding when I visit you at the waterfall, am I?”

“What?” Jesse blinked at him, but very quickly for a friendly smile. “No! No, you’re okay, Aiden. I just mean they’re my safe spots from all the time loop BS. And I’m more than happy to share them with you, so it’s okay!”

The man was taken aback and flushed, embarrassed. He was unsure of how to answer, to say thanks, or to be flattered.

“I’m glad,” he managed to say, and he hoped she figured out what he was trying to say.

When her features softened, he liked to think that she did.

* * *

As he continued to rummage until the last chest, he was reminded of something he forgot to ask in the last loop. Holding the bunny carefully so that it didn’t fall apart, he would have moved to hold it up to Jesse, but decided against it. “Hey, Jesse?” He called out instead.

“Yeah? What’cha find?”

“Uh- this stuffed toy rabbit?” He glanced at it hesitantly, in an almost terrified way. “It has stuffing and all that falling out of it.”

“Oh! That’s mine,” she chuckled, “I was trying to stitch together my own stuffed toy but gave up. Sorry, did she scare you?”

“A little bit,” he replied, unable to bite back his answer. As gently and unoffensively as he could, he lay the not-spawn-of-Satan back in its haven of blankets and bean bags.

Returning to his bean bag did nothing to rid the rabbit from his memory; if nothing else, it summoned recollections of previous conversations. Taking a sip from the bottle Jesse smuggled in, he let himself ruminate over them, wondering, trying to push against his anxieties and worries.

(He meant no harm.)

Finally, he asked, “Hey Jesse, can I ask you something personal?”

“You can, but I can’t guarantee a satisfying answer,” she replied jokingly.

He smiled, “That’s okay, I’d understand.”

(He really would.)

“Why the rabbit?” He asked her, much to her confusion. He continued, “I mean, if rabbits and bunnies are your favorite animal, why did you have Reuben? Why didn’t you tame a bunny?”

A page fell limply from chilly, windless air unto the rest of its kin, Jesse’s finger frozen midway.

(Look at what you’ve done.)

“Y-You don’t have to answe-”

“No,” she said as she shook her head. Her voice was hard, determined, almost- Aiden would dare say -mature. “I’ll tell you. Just- not now.”

Aiden bit his lip, seeing her like this. It was almost visible to the naked eye how her energy suddenly drained away in an instant, how quickly her mood dropped along with the temperature, movements going frigid as the air and time stilled.

All because of one name.

He nodded in understanding and backed down.

“Okay. That’s fair.”

* * *

As it turns out, Jesse had a very difficult job. That shulker box she brought out the first time wasn’t the only one she had on her person- there were 15 more, all filled nearly to the brim with books compiling tons of files and reports and notes. She carried them around everywhere, sometimes even filling her entire inventory with just those boxes, ready for perusal and work wherever she needed.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend getting a job in civilization management,” she said with a laugh. Aiden couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “It’s really shit, super boring, and generally really confusing.”

“Why do you have this job, then?” He asked, genuinely curious. “Because you’re the leader of the New Order of the Stone?”

“Yeah, actually! That’s exactly it.”

“Wait, what??”

“Yeah,” she tightened the red band around a book, and tossed it into a half-full shulker box, “There’s this thing called the Civil Union, you might not have heard of it. It’s this group of leaders from all sorts of villages and towns, all that kinda stuff. They’re trying to work together for…” Jesse barely gave it a thought and waved her hand dismissively, “ _Whatever reason_. I don’t particularly care ‘cause nothing comes out of it ‘cause of the loops, and they all sound like pompous adults anyway. All this discourse and back-and-forth, I’m not really into it. Not worth the energy,” she said with a shake of her head.

“They’re like, Game of Thrones level of bullshit, but I never really listened to that show so I wouldn’t know.”

Aiden blinked at her, utterly befuddled and unable to catch up to any of what she said. “What?”

“They’re why I’m swamped with paperwork. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Oh.”

It was a story for another day...

...And Jesse had plenty of stories.

It was amazing to Aiden how quickly she could switch topics. Her focus never really seemed to stay still on one particular thing, as if there was always something waiting impatiently in queue.

What a long queue it was.

(Not to say that he and his friends didn’t have their own wordy, “intellectual” conversations from time to time, but things like that were absolutely draining for most of them. Aiden himself could never bear talking too much in one sitting, before feeling numb and uncomfortable in the mouth, and wanting to keep his mouth shut and lips pursed for the next several hours. Gill was the most talkative out of all of them, especially when it was something he was passionate about, like musical theatre. Maya herself tended to be a listener along with Aiden, adding in bits of opinions or questions along the way.

And Lukas…

...To be honest, Aiden never paid attention to how long he talked. Whoever was doing the talking between them, Aiden was always in the moment, either letting out his frustrations or absorbing whatever Lukas talked about and simply staying there, sitting with him, enamored beyond belief.

Thinking about it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.)

The new topic of the hour was housing.

“It’s super interesting,” she started as she read the book in her hands. She held it up on her right, while her left took over the job of writing and was making quick work of another report, as if writing by memory. “Beacontown’s only got borders because of the Civil Union, and these borders are pretty damn small, all things considered.”

Aiden listened as she busied herself with her work and rambled mostly to herself more than him. He tried understanding everything as best as he could, but most of it all went through one ear and out the other.

(He very quickly came to the conclusion that, from all this professional jargon flying over his head, this job was far beyond his expertise.

He wonders if Isa and Milo are like this while trying to handle the remaining population of the city and their only three major prisoners.)

“It’s kinda weird that you guys aren’t part of the territory, of _any_ territory, actually. By the Union’s standards, you’re out in the wild. None of your names are on _any_ of these records.” She looked up at him with a raised brow, genuinely curious. “Was that on purpose? I remember- you guys lived far away from town before, right?”

Aiden blinked as he tried to catch up. “Uh- yeah, we did. But, I mean, it’s not like we knew about any territory or anything. I didn’t even know about this Civil Union stuff until you told me.” He could only shrug after trying to think. “I dunno, none of us were really into staying that close to civilization, I guess. Or maybe Gill just got really annoyed by Illagers constantly raiding the village he lived nearby, and swore off of civilization entirely,” he adds humorously.

Jesse hums, “Cool, cool,” and returns quickly to work.

The silence of the safe space is comforting and, much to Aiden’s joy, not at all awkward. Sitting here, looking around while she works, is kind of nice to him.

(He remembers doing the same with Lukas, as he wrote his stories or recorded the weeks’ events in his journal. He remembers watching him, concentrated and determined and passionate over his work.)

Aiden’s whole form stutters, causing him to drop the lid of the chest closed.

“Aiden? Are you okay?” Jesse asks from her workbench. “Is something the matter?”

It never occurs to him to worry if she heard him or not, as all he can do is weakly croak a “No.”

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Jesse was immune to anything and everything; but he’s not dumb, and she’s only human.

And as fate would have it, both of them have lost something.

* * *

When she’s walking him out the temple, he had to stop when she did at the entrance to the Treasure Hall, which opened automatically when they came in proximity, allowing them both to see into it. Jesse in particular was staring into the Hall, slouching as if weakened. Her hands at her sides have fallen limp. Aiden couldn’t tell if they were twitching or if his eyes were just playing tricks on him.

Tracing her gaze, he found it landing in the general direction of the pink, pig-adorned tapestry, adorned with flowers

“Aiden,” she starts in a soft voice, “do you ever think about getting your own place?”

It cracks, but no signs of tears ever make themselves known.

“Y’know, to away and pretend everything is fine? That you aren’t wrapped up in some crazy, out-of-this-world drama?”

She turns to him as she bows her head, as if looking to him for some sort of answer.

He doesn’t know why it pains him that he has none.

“Do you?” He answers instead.

She hugs herself and squirms.

“All the time.”

Jesse is limp and slow, giving him a sad wave and a smile as he leaves the premises of Beacontown, and she keeps it up as she closes the door.

There is no resolution until the next loop, when they’re sitting together once more at the waterfall, the midpoint between the Blaze Rod’s house and the New Order’s temple.

“I met him here,” she began, “On my second attempt at- at killing myself.”

Immediately, the air became heavy. The emptiness cried for him once more, clawed and clamored for him stubbornly, alongside the pit in his stomach as memories of him, of Maya, of Gill, rushed back and played in his head in a flash. Then they were replaced quickly by every remaining memory of the Building Competitions, of 9”8=8@’# *roup and their rivalry, of every mean-spirited word he threw at them, every time he laughed, every time he made a jab and never apologized.

He looked away in guilt, though he didn’t have to do anything for everything else to pay attention to Jesse.

“Are you still okay for me to talk about this?” She still asks him- she _has_ to ask him! Guilt- Aiden feels the indescribable- no, the _guilt_ , the heartache, weigh heavier on him as he shakes his head insistently.

“No, it’s okay.” He turns back to her and tries to relax. “Really. Keep going, if you still want to.”

For a moment, their focus is solely on each other, gazes put on lock as they tried to decipher each other, tried to understand.

Aiden waits.

Jesse continued after a deep sigh. “Okay, thank you.”

He nods wordlessly, biting and pursing his lips.

“It was a couple of days after my first attempt. I can’t remember when it was anymore- sometime June or July. A- Axel and Olivia tried to get me to the th-therapist Liv used to go to, but I- ...I ran.” Jesse pulled her legs closer, as her voice wavered. “I ran away. I ran and I ran and I ran and all I wanted to do was die.”

She chuckles bitterly. “It’s funny- these are the kinds of memories I can never stop thinking about, no matter how many loops I go through.”

Neutral and a bystander, the waterfall rushes by and disappears into the lake.

“After my first loop- sorry,” she laughs to herself bitterly under quivering breath, “My first attempt, I _hated_ myself. So much. I felt like such a fucking failure and- and just weak and useless because I didn’t have the guts to kill myself. I- I prepared the noose, the chair, the note- and I- I couldn’t do it.

“I wanted to try again, so that I wouldn’t burden my friends anymore than I already did. I was already a defective spawn, and it’s not like I had much of a job or any sort of- like, notable talent or anything. Not like Axel and Liv. And don’t bring up my “hero work” or whatever, I hate that. And I didn’t have that before anyway.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he murmured.

Jesse’s breathing was ragged, her eyes were blinking rapidly- but she nodded and took deep, heavy breaths in an attempt to calm down. “Okay.”

He watched her patiently. He didn’t need her to continue, he didn’t answers.

(Yes, he asked her the question, but it was up to her to answer.

“For once,” might not be the accurate phrase, but it hit him that if she couldn’t continue and dropped it now, he wouldn’t mind at all. He would have no answers, sure, but he wouldn’t care. Not in the grand scheme of things.

Still, she continued, and he felt nothing; no bias, no impressions. Just an open book, listening.)

“So… So I ran here. Well, not _here_ here, I don’t think so. But I ended up at a waterfall, similar to this one. Secluded, cold, at the dead end of a forest…”

She trembles. Her voice wavers.

The waters continue to rush with no bias, no remorse, no thought.

“And I met him here.” She motioned a hand to the grass they sat upon. “Right here, in the same way we’re sitting now. A little-” She sniffed. A nostalgic, wobbly smile broke through her tears. “A little baby pig, sitting here, staring at the water; and he wanted to jump too.”

_What?_

Aiden couldn’t hide his surprise, shock, confusion. A jolt ran through him, causing him to unfold and nearly drop his legs in the water. All his focus was entirely on the woman sitting next to him, the woman who didn’t respond to or mind his reaction. She closed her eyes and smiled.

“He wanted to drown himself in the pool too, just like I did. That’s how we became friends.”

Her voice was airy, floaty, as if in a dream-like trance. A nostalgia-sweeped high. She giggled- chuckled? He didn’t know anymore. But a noise came out of her, and her smile persisted; accompanied it, even.

Jesse, contrasting the story she was telling, was serene and at peace.

“That was the first time I ever saw the void.”

* * *

"Jesse? ..I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about Reuben. I don't know how I can make up for it."

"It's okay, Aiden, really. ... .. ..But thank you. You don't have to do anything to make up for it, haha

Honestly, I'd say you already are."

* * *

Jesse was an interesting woman. The more time Aiden spent with her, the more he got to know about her, proved that to him. It was just layers upon layers of curious things, things he had no answers to, things he couldn’t quite figure out or understand completely.

(Did he even want answers?)

He had no idea what to do with it.

In reality, there was nothing _to_ do with it. By all technicality, she was just another person, another spawn among others who happened to be at certain places at certain times. An ordinary person who loved and lost just like anybody else. An ordinary person who happened to become a hero because of circumstances.

However fortunate or unfortunate these circumstances were is debatable, but nothing could be done about them now. They were in the past, they couldn’t be changed anymore.

Especially with the loops.

They still had no answers. Not that he was actively looking for any - frankly, he’s still surprised at how he’s been taking it - but Jesse has tried and looked through every nook and cranny imaginable, and obviously came out empty. What if there were no answers? What if they were stuck in these loops for all eternity? Would he mind? Would he go mad? Would he care at all?

Would he get used to it?

He sits here, helping Jesse finish the stitching of her DIY rabbit plush, acting as if everything was fine. Everything runs in the background, and all that matters to him, all that is _real_ to him, is holding on to this person, this person he used to tease and then hate and then-

...And then what?

She beams a celebratory grin; a genuine, wholesome pride at the stitching she completed on the arm of the toy. He can’t help but smile.

(If he tried to list all her qualities, all the things about her, her traits, her personality- he wouldn’t know where to start, what words to use or why. Was she really this much of an enigma? Probably not. Realistically, she was most likely as about average as anybody else.

Perhaps it was just him then. Perhaps he just didn’t have all the pieces, or he just had no idea how to put them together yet.

Perhaps he didn’t need to at all.)

Jesse carries the completed plush bunny around with her, everywhere, after that day. He only knows this because she has it in her arms whenever she visits him in prison, taking it casually out of her inventory, showing off how, “I just swam through lava and this baby is still in pristine condition!” or something of the like.

And he likes it.

He thinks he’s lucky that he got this opportunity to know her.

Even if he had no idea why. Even if he had no idea how.

Aiden would dare to describe it as a blessing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this going too fast? i feel like it's going too fast. who knows. who cares. Lukano's real name is mistakes can confirm  
> for real though sorry this is so bad haha im trying
> 
> **Number of Iterations: 19**


	8. kindred spirits except one is only 1/16th a soul and the other has none

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i said on discord to my friends that ferry's song "happy girl" was all that played on my head while i thought about this chapter of lukano, while trying to write it, and i said that i couldnt figure out why
> 
> i do now
> 
>   
> ~~now yknow if ao3 could just let me set the publication date to _the 20th_ , aka the actual legitimate date of publication because it's 1:42 am, that would be _really great_~~  
> 

At the moment, Jesse was the only person awake in the void. As always, the realm was texture-less, a blanket of black decorated only with transparent lines, covering up the waves of red that, really, mean nothing.

They  _ are _ nothing.

In the void, Jesse and Aiden are the only things that  _ are _ something. They mattered, they  _ are _ matter; made up of things, with textures and assets and an actual appearance and depth.

They weren’t…  _ nothing _ . Not objectively, not subjectively.

In the void, they were out of place.

In the void, they were foreigners.

...Or at least, Aiden was.

Jesse didn’t need to think too hard to know any of that. She’d lived and breathed this venta black since the day she spawned. One could say she knew the ins and outs of it, but there were no ins nor outs to become familiar with. It was a void and exactly that, empty and featureless with neither a beginning or end.

But even then, it was almost… exclusive.

The void, the punishment, the loops- it wasn’t supposed to be a multiplayer thing.

Not that Jesse wanted to keep it all to herself; she didn’t even want any of it in the first place. Yet it seemed to be  _ her _ curse,  _ her _ personal hell when she wasn’t following orders,  _ her _ burden to bear.

Not anybody else’s. 

(Not after Reuben. Not after _him._ )

Yet here he was. The boy she grew up competing against before the loops started. The man who became background, minor to everything she had to go through. She sat here, in his cell, right next to his bed as he slept a dreamless slumber.

He was…

Jesse smiles as she looks away.

To say that she hated him was an overstatement. Over the past however-many loops, she’d gotten to know him more and more, and  _ of course _ she got emotionally invested,  _ of course _ she got attached to him. What was her shield against the repeated angst of the loops became the gaping doorway to this friendship.

Because that’s what it was, right? They were friends, there was no way to skirt around that. A mutual want to get over their past made  _ this _ .

How long had he been in these loops with her? She already lost count after three. The  _ idiot _ wormed his way into her life and threw a wrench into everything; and now she was here, not stuck, but now just not wanting to leave, not wanting anything to change.

She liked this. Whatever “this” was, because try as she might, she couldn’t be satisfied with just the term ‘friendship,’ even if that was what it really was. This - a friendship, a relationship, solidarity,  _ whatever _ \- was something she didn’t want to lose. She couldn’t let this fall into the hands of somebody else, couldn’t let it change anything.

...Hearing herself, Jesse laughs bitterly.

The time loops were a double-edged sword. Specifically, the time loops  _ with Aiden _ were a double-edged sword. The woman had already gotten past the vast list of detriments the time loops had to gift her. Sure, she wasn’t okay and she didn’t like any of it, but it was a routine she became accustomed to, which was more than enough for her to ask for in that situation.  _ But then Aiden came _ .

(Aiden the in-over-his-head, ambitious, selfish, angry disaster of a man came in, with his humor and inability to actually make any substantial insults, doe-eyed and remorseful and  _ how could she not let him in? _

She wouldn’t consider herself a forgiving soul, but she wouldn’t doubt the idea of a kindred one.

Jesse was selfish, just like he was. It was easy,  _ far too easy _ for her to attach herself to somebody when the combination was right. Neither of them grew up not thinking too hard before shoving snark into a conversation and walking away hurting somebody’s feelings. Both of them were far too sensitive for their own good, on all fronts. The slightest change of intonation in their friend’s words were too noticeable for them to miss, leaving them prone to slipping into a pit of anxieties and unanswered questions, worries and irrational, illogical remedies acted out in a naive want to fix things; to bring them back to the way things were.

With all of that, how could she hate him? How could she not forgive him?

Jesse was too similar to a lot of people, a lot of whom she didn’t like one bit.  Aiden was just one of those people she didn’t expect to get close to. After her realization on his character, after she forgave him, she gave him no more thought; and she thought that was the end of it.

Clearly that wasn’t the case now.)

He came in and changed everything, and she had to get accustomed to somebody else being here and pausing when she knew herself that she was following the script. Everything she thought she knew or had some sort of grasp on was completely skewed now that somebody else was in here. So many questions ambushed her that day, and she didn’t allow herself to lose her cool for just a moment after her initial breakdown; didn’t want Aiden to see her cry, out of some sort of shame or pride. She gave herself the role as his tutorial to the loops, when she herself barely knew anymore than he did beyond the basic mechanics.

In a way, she brought this upon herself.

Inviting him over, talking to him, opening up to him, giving him a shoulder to cry on.

_ This was all her fault _ .

(But weren’t most things?

Wasn’t everything her fault?)

This whole predicament she found herself in was a double-edged sword.

She cared about Aiden, she knew that. She would do anything for him if she could; but that complicated the loops. Complicated  _ everything. _ Now she had to watch somebody she genuinely cared for get sick and suffer unknown pains every day, and it was  _ her fault _ ;  because it was always after the Witherstorm's death, always right after she plunged the weapon into the block and shattered it to pieces . Now he brought in the questions of, “Why? Who else would be susceptible to these loops? Why him in particular?” Now she was getting attached and setting herself up to lose everything like she did her friends. Now she was loving the same man the  _ other _ boy she fell for wished would die.

.

..

Jesse sighed. That was enough thinking for now.

The tired warrior pushed the thoughts away and locked them for the moment, forcing her head to focus on the one good thing these loops ever did for her.

She let go of her head and let her hands fall to her sides, leaving her hair messier, her braid even more undone; and she looked to the man sleeping on the bed beside her.

He was breathing evenly, at least, as much as he could while struggling through a clogged nose and an irritated throat; but evenly nonetheless. The man lay on his side, one hand laying limp by his head while the other dangled over the bed, brushing lightly against her as he twitched in his sleep. Jesse could barely stifle a soft giggle whenever it happened.

As she inched closer to the wall, the sound of her armor clattering must have woken him up. He hummed and whimpered groggily, shifting in a sluggish manner; prompting more light giggles from the woman beside him. One eye cracked open, unfocused and blinking slowly. The light, pale green eventually found their way to her.

Jesse smiled softly. “Good morning.”

Aiden grunted and shifted over to lay on his stomach, one arm under his body now while the other fell over the bed. His one open eye remained on Jesse. “How many hours’ve it been?”

“Just three. Don’t worry, we’re okay.”

“Hm. That's good.” His eye closed as more sluggish, tired sounds escaped him.

“Hey Jesse?” He asked, his voice was muffled by his sleeve.

“Yeah?”

“Do you dance?” He moved slightly to rest his head on his arm, now with both eyes squinting drowsily. “No reason, I just... dreamed about me and Lukas slow dancing way back when…”

Jesse’s face fell to a small frown upon the mention of the man, now knowing about their previous relationship. The prisoner slumped, almost sinking into the dirty mattress. “Sorry if that’s weird. ‘M sorry…”

“Not at all.” She tried to convey as much reassurance as she could into a gentle smile, “I think I did, before, when I didn’t care about anybody judging me.” The woman drew her knees closer, wrapping her arms around them as she breathed a laugh, pushing away the pang of weariness in her chest. “I guess I never really got around to it, nowadays. Y’know, with the loops.”

Aiden hummed, or grumbled, Jesse wasn’t sure. “These loops suck.”

Immediately, all the feelings weighing her down lightened, and the smile and chuckle came naturally.

“They really do, but,” her smile widened into a grin, though relaxed and calm unlike the times before when it was mischievous and energetic. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Aiden. I really mean that.”

Aiden shut his eyes and hid his face, flushed and clearly embarrassed; though she could see the beginnings of a smile crack through, showing from above his sleeves.

“Same here, Jess,” he mumbled. He was breathing deeply again, heavily and slowly; obvious signs that he was slipping back into slumber. “I think you’re really cool.”

Jesse blinked, feeling herself go warm against the moderate chill of the void and almost prompting her to look away; but Aiden was falling back asleep. Her surprise quickly melted into a smile.

“Thanks Aiden,” she took his hand gently and squeezed lightly, her thumb caressing his scarred skin, “I think you’re cool too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was way shorter than the other chapters and i hate that but,, yknow the universe n fate work weirdly and i think it works ~~even if it's also a fckin mistake~~ so yknow
> 
> **Number of Iterations: 30**


	9. the second to the last nail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you want to know how upsetting it is to set the publication date to the day you're uploading the chapter and then having ao3 tell you the publication date cant be the future except it's not the future it's the present hmmmmmmm
> 
> recommendation: [La Vie en Rose](https://youtu.be/A2Qz4_MbAEU)  
> ([the more emotional one](https://youtu.be/-bcbli6w3ZY); spoilers for Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea)

“Do you think we could get away with building a random house in the middle of the woods?”

Sitting on top of an eleven-foot wall while drunk was, admittedly, a terrible idea, for a variety of reasons. The obvious one being that one of them could just collapse into unconsciousness and fall over and break a dozen bones. The ones the pair were more concerned about, however, were the nonchalant spilling of words they’d normally be too embarrassed to say.

Like what Aiden just asked.

He normally wasn’t one to be inhibited with words when it came to regular interactions, but conversations with somebody he had complicated feelings for (since when?) were an entirely different story; one that normally consisted of him making drafts upon drafts in his head of whatever he wanted to say before actually saying it.

Unless, of course, he was drunk. Like he was now.

Jesse always brought a different drink whenever they met at the festival. Chocolate became his favorite drink somewhere down the line after she brought it the first time; or something significant like that, his memory was becoming foggy as the time loops passed. But he knew well enough now that Jesse, somehow, knew about a plethora of drinks, bringing different kinds of flavors of juice and milk and, more recently, alcohol to their meetings.

The fact that she couldn’t remember a single name from her collection surprised him less than the fact that she had a collection, but it made him laugh fondly nonetheless.

(Fond? When did that start?

Thinking about all of this made his head hurt again. Maybe he shouldn’t be drinking while horrifically sick. Feelings suck.)

Jesse thought over his question, humming exaggeratedly as she held her chin in thought. “Maybe!” She turned to him as she leaned back, resting on her hands behind her. “As far as I know, the woods beyond the valley up north are completely uncharted. You wanna build there?”

Although he had no idea what place Jesse was talking about, Aiden shrugged. “Sure!”

The day Lukas and Aiden broke up (the quiet way, in advance; Aiden didn’t feel like waiting for the original date to come anymore), he met Jesse at the very same waterfall again, and she proposed a trip to the forest, where they spent the evening until early the next morning building.

(They did not think ahead about their friends being worried sick over them when they returned home; the inevitable guilt over which Jesse comforted him over.)

On the day they both knew as Jesse’s first free day post-festival, they returned to the house they built, made entirely of birch wood and surrounded by replanted saplings. It was a single-story affair, with only the essential rooms and nothing more; a little larger than a treehouse, but enough for two people to occupy comfortably.

As they stood together and admired their work, Jesse hummed. “Y’know, you’re not that bad of a builder.”

Aiden cracked a smile, “Really?”

“Yeah, man,” she put her hands on her hips and grinned at him, “I’m telling you, I’m not much of a builder like you guys or Axel are.” She motioned to the house, quaint and currently unlived in. “This wasn’t me. I think you did a pretty good job.”

“Hey, give yourself some credit, Jess.”

She giggled at the light punch to her arm, clearly affectionate and absent of any hostility. “You helped too. Things like this wouldn’t have turned out nearly as great with just one person.”

“Okay, fine,” she surrendered, reluctant though flattered, “We both did this.”

When chuckles and words died down, they welcomed the silence, standing side-by-side and admiring their work.

“Should we go inside?”

“Yeah, let’s.”

Getting comfortable on the couch with chocolate milk and a blanket, as Aiden brought out a favorite board game of his that he smuggled from before the storm, Jesse thinks subconsciously over everything they’ve done so far. The air is cold, but not unbearably so. Aiden’s sickness was always milder before Sky City than after, but here he seemed better; able to build a house all night long and having no difficulty in eating or any strenuous tasks.

(Knowing that made something akin to pride for him swell in her chest.)

Jesse smiles, grins behind her mug of chocolate, when Aiden sees her and mirrors her expression.

Building a home their “random house” in the Pneumono forest really wasn’t such a bad idea.

* * *

The homemade replica of a board game sat finished and abandoned on the coffee table, its players now laying on the couch, a seat apart with drinks half-finished in their hands. Filling the silence was the crinkling of a jukebox, humming an old tune and calming the evening silence the pair sat in.

Aiden enjoyed this. He actually enjoyed this. Playing with Jesse was actually _fun_ , spending time with her was fun, drinking with her, talking with her, was a pastime he never wanted to end. Even when their conversations took a turn for the serious or retrospective, he found himself enjoying those moments too, cherishing them and keeping them close.

(Getting to make more of those memories in their hideaway of a house, which they always rebuilt in every loop without fail, brought him a familiar kind of delight or happiness; the same kind he recognized he had with Lukas, a kind he didn’t know he was still allowed to have.

In a way, these new moments and memories with Jesse were what kept him going.)

La Vie En Rose brought the atmosphere to a chill, letting the cold weigh heavy in a sort of nostalgic, melancholic way. Jesse breathed evenly at the other side of the couch, thumbing the rim of her glass as her gaze drifted into nothing.

Aiden didn’t realize he’d slumped into a limp relaxation until she said his name. He blinked out of his daze as she continued, “Remember how you asked if I dance?”

He raised a brow. “I did?”

“You don’t remember?”

When he shook his head, already embarrassed over apparently having asked that, she blinked at him, surprised or bewildered; before she shook her head with a smile. “That’s okay, you were half-asleep. But anyway,” the chuckle that escaped her lips is humorless as her eyes are downcast, staring beyond the board on the table, into some abyss Aiden couldn’t see, almost intangible in a way. Seeing that same expression again rid him of all of his embarrassment, drawing out of him concern and heartbreak instead.

“I told you that the reason I don’t anymore is because of the loops, and in a way, that’s partially true.” She inhaled deeply as her eyes slipped closed, giving up, relaxed. “But the real reason is that I hate myself,” she says matter-of-factly. Hearing that, it suddenly felt as if a bat was swung into Aiden’s chest, as his mouth fell open slightly, but no noise came out. He was speechless.

“I hate _looking_ at myself, too. I feel weird in my own body, like I’m trapped in this ugly, corporeal _thing_ that shouldn’t exist.” The smile on her face is bittersweet, the dissonance highlighted by the blush on her cheeks and her fading lipstick, and her half-lidded eyes that seem to be going red in the soft, dim light. “I know I used to be fine before, but…”

She shook her head and finished the last of her drink, and when she did, she stared up at the empty glass, seeing nothing but the distorted ceiling. Aiden watched her, concerned and patient.

Finally, Jesse returned the glass to the coaster on the table and fell to the back of the couch.

“I’ve come to hate the idea of sustaining myself even more.”

Aiden let himself look away, down at the board game on the table, as he urged his muscles to relax and his breathing to even, as memories and feelings and intrusive thoughts returned, both his own and of her. He pursed his lips and sighed.

Fighting her feelings wouldn’t do any good.

"I remember seeing you dance at Endercon sometimes," he started in a low voice. "Did you feel that way too, then?"

Thinking on it briefly, she said with a hum, "Maybe I did, but I must have forgotten in the moment." She shrugged and looked to him, "I guess I just let myself have fun in those times. Even if I felt embarrassed about it afterward."

Aiden sighed, recognizing that very same line of thought.

“Yeah, I can get that."

He closed his eyes and leaned his head into the pillow, tilting upwards and trying to ignore when Jesse’s gaze, sympathetic and admirable.

“Do you want to dance, sometime?” She asked him. The sound of her long-ago, usual peppiness was there, somewhere; and although the question was odd, because of what she just said (it wasn’t usually Aiden’s thing to dance with friends), the boy laughed, hesitant and unsure. He looked to her to reply, “Only if you want to. I don’t want to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. I mean, given everything you just said…”

He trailed off. To his relief/delight, Jesse relaxed and smiled, the same kind of smile where she seemed genuinely happy, content; _okay_.

“I’ll get back to you on that, then.”

* * *

They did, in fact, get away with building a random house in the middle of the woods.

Not a single soul found them when Aiden tried and failed to teach Jesse how to cook. The house caught on fire and nearly spread to the rest of the forest, but not after a _deafeningly_ loud explosion occurred. Jesse and Aiden barely got back on their feet in time to get rid of the ensuing fire.

And not a single soul found their house. Which was a relief, because neither of them figured out how to explain themselves if caught by anybody, _especially their friends_ ; but also a concern, because who heard that explosion from the woods and didn’t think to check?

(Granted, they lived in a world where explosive monsters that thrive in the dark exist, so that must have been a factor. Pneumonoultra _was_ quite dark.)

The two decided to swear off of Jesse getting anywhere near a stove for the better part of the next century. “Next time,” Jesse joked, “You should teach me in an open field. Like the valley.”

“Are you kidding? You’re gonna trigger those two volcanoes to come to life, no way!”

He received a not-so-light punch as they both laughed.

In much the same way, not a single soul had come upon their house and stolen a single thing. Although, yes, they barely had anything in the house to begin with, Aiden figured that a jukebox would be pretty valuable; especially one with vinyls surviving the Witherstorm event. If nothing else, easy wood would have been pretty tempting, instead of having to cut down trees and worrying about replanting or leaving behind free sticks or apples. And yet, nobody came. Jesse and Aiden were gone days at a time from the house in each loop, and _every time,_ they came back home to everything the exact way they left them.

On one hand, that was great, because they knew that their things were safe.

On the other hand, Jesse was absolutely right about _the entire forest_ being uncharted territory. It was like nobody lived anywhere near here for _miles_. The Pneumonoultra forest was like that saying, “If a tree fell in a forest and nobody was there to hear it, did it make a sound at all?”

Nobody came to check the explosion, nobody came through to steal a thing; it was like they were the only inhabitant of the forest.

“It’s not like that’s a bad thing,” Jesse mused, “It’s just… kind of unexpected, is all. I guess with the Civil Union, I’m just now so used to everything being recorded and monopolized, that actual, like, _nature_ being left alone- well, mostly left alone -is news to me.”

Then she smiled, making Aiden smile too. “I kinda like it.”

“Well, I mean- it was your idea to build here in the first place. You made a smart choice to build here,” he said effortlessly in response. Jesse sent him a look, a sort of conflict between a frown and a grin which only resulted in her cheeks puffing up comedically, making Aiden snort and laugh in response.

“I mean, sure, maybe,” she said with a huff and crossed arms, “but you suggested building a random house in a forest to begin with! So we should both take credit for this. I think we’re geniuses.”

Aiden, though touched, shrugged all the same. “I would disagree on the idea that both of us are geniuses, because I’m not; but you know what, I’ll take it.”

Jesse grinned at the words as he smiled. “Good! You should. Otherwise I’ll suplex you for self-deprecation.”

“You can do that?”

She could do that.

The revelation when she did both terrified Aiden and made him adore her all the more.

* * *

The only thing that was special about the day Aiden realized he was head-over-heels for Jesse, was the very fact that he finally admitted to himself that he was, indeed, head-over-heels for Jesse.

Perhaps a better term to use would be _noteworthy_ , because there was something noteworthy about that day: he realized that he completely wrapped himself around her finger when she defeated him again on the ledge at Sky City.

Which was weird, but Aiden figured he’s unreasonable enough as it is that it was downright _typical_ of him to fall in love, _hard_ , with someone because they had the capacity to glare down at him, in the roaring thunder and rain, while he had leather straps digging into him all over his body and he could barely move a muscle.

...Thinking about it after the fact (which he did, because that was all he could think about from that point forward) only made him flush and, if Jesse’s giggling was anything to go by, pull a face that was comedy gold; which only made him send her a look, which made her laugh harder, and he was conflicted between admiring the genuine and melodious sound of her laugh accompanied by the gentle cackle of the campfire, and burying himself under a blanket in embarrassment.

He wouldn’t know because he was too busy mentally smacking himself over the head to react in any way other than a groan.

(You literally don’t deserve her. At all.)

(I know.)

(How presumptuous and arrogant do you have to be to even think that you’re allowed anywhere near her?)

(I know.)

But he didn’t, or he did.

As she handed him a bar of chocolate from one of the worlds in the Portal Network, he had to remind himself, “She’s my friend. First and foremost, _she’s my friend_.”

They were friends? Even that was hard for him to wrap his head around.

(Look at you, making this all about yourself.)

Of course, he wasted no time in spiraling into a seemingly never-ending abyss of conflicting thoughts. His doubts and fears and anxieties created themselves an echo chamber out of his affections and yelled at him, “NO.”

But his impulsiveness was never a good listener.

(He hated both.)

Because the fireworks above them were beautiful, and _Jesse_ was beautiful, and frankly, he could never get over how much he adored that look on her face as she admired the fireworks; how much of it was unadulterated and pure, and how much of it was formed out of, grown out of, everything she’d been through and persevered. Like the waterfall, the fireworks were an unbiased asset, background, separate from the both of them; and Jesse seemed to have an affiliation with both. Memories of her, good and bad, associated themselves with the waterfall and the fireworks, and they filled his head until they were all he could think about most times. They were enough to drown in when nothing else was there to distract him.

But he was distracted now, evidently. He’d apparently fallen into a trance, which Jesse snapped him out of when she said his name and held his hand. He blinked stupidly at her, oblivious and dazed as he tried to get his bearings.

Anything she might have been saying flew right past him, through one ear and out the other, as all he could think about was, “I love you.”

Which he didn’t think, because it suddenly felt like everything had gone silent, and he realized very quickly that he wasn’t thinking that, he actually said that out-loud; and Jesse was sitting before him, wide-eyed and caught off-guard. Instantly, he scrambled to backtrack and come up with an excuse, to apologize profusely, but Jesse cut his efforts short. And she _smiled_ , dammit, and Aiden felt himself go rigid and yet melt into an incomprehensible puddle of emotion when she squeezed his hand and giggled and said, “I love you too.”

The next several moments were composed of confused and delighted laughter as they both realized what had just happened.

* * *

Neither of them could really figure out when they started feeling that way to each other. They just knew, at some point, that they did.

“I know for sure that I loved you when we were first building that house,” Jesse admitted, “But I don’t think that’s when I started loving you. I think I did even before that, too.”

That caused him to stammer and laugh nervously, prompting Jesse to chuckle, which brought him both comfort and a lighthearted frown as she laughed at his expression.

He calmed down quickly enough to try and figure out when. “I know I realized it- that I love you, uh- a few loops ago. I think.” He held the nape of his neck, unsure and going red as Jesse watched him, smiling, amused and adoring. “But I don’t know if that’s when I started.”

“Hm. Well,” she smiled, “What matters now is that we do and we both know it now.”

He couldn’t help anything but to bashfully return the smile.

Aiden admittedly felt stupid, but it was an okay kind of stupid. Like the same kind of dumb, formless feelings he had for Lukas way back when.

... _Way back when?_

He caught himself off-guard with that revelation, but it wasn’t unwelcome. It wasn’t that he forgot- he still experienced the break-up and the rebranding into the Blaze Rods- but it didn’t hurt anymore. Lukas leaving didn’t hurt anymore.

If anything, he was _glad_. Glad that he was rid of him, glad that he left in the first place. Why, exactly, was beyond him, but he knew that he just was.

Maya and Gill were still caught in the loops. They were still hurting, which he never forgot, which he never became numb to. As much as he loved hanging out with Jesse, she - bless her - always reminded him of his friends; reminded him not to leave them behind and become callous to their pain.

(Petra coming in every single time that first free-day at the temple, double-checking if Jesse really didn’t want to go to that Ocean Monument, was somehow a good reminder of his friends back at home.)

But none of it bothered him anymore. He couldn’t do anything to fix any of that. If he could, he would have devoted every cell in his body to get rid of his best friends’ pain.

Realistically, however, he couldn’t; because there was no way.

And he accepted that.

(“Aiden?”

Jesse nudged him as she chewed on a cookie, a glass of milk in the hand of the arm she bumped lightly against his. “You okay, man?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He responded without missing a beat. She smiled, then returned to her stargazing, and he did too; the both of them sitting on beds on the roof, watching the smoke of the bonfire billow and rise, becoming nothing against the sparkling sky.)

Dwelling on that forever would have done him no good. Not on top of the loops and his sickness.

(“I love you, Aiden,” she murmurs to him sleepily.

The bonfire was slowly dying. The cookies were finished. Empty glasses of milk were left on the floor beside their beds.

On their shared beds, Jesse snuggled into him and wrapped her arms around his. He chuckled and smiled, and kissed her gently on the forehead, prompting a short giggle out of her that made him feel a fluff, sort of fuzzy warmth in his chest.

“I love you too, Jess.”)

Besides, he had something to look forward to.

* * *

“Wait, Jess-”

He took her hand in a grip tighter than he expected. Instinctively, he loosened his grip, though his fingers still remained, brushing against her own. Jesse stepped closer and waited patiently for him to talk, squeezing his hand and rubbing the skin of his wrist.

Feeling that warmth made him break a smile, though he was still downcast, his eyes staring at their intertwined fingers, his mind on their new relationship.

As much as he’s moved on from Lukas, some things still remained.

“Please,” he said desperately- no, _pleadingly_ . He may as well have gone down on his knees and begged. “If anything is wrong, _anything_ -”

Right then, his voice began to break, choking through a sob.

“If something seems wrong to you, if there’s something wrong with me that you’re uncomfortable by or anything,” he looked up from under his drooping hair, and his eyes locked with Jesse’s. “Please tell me, _please_. I want to do right by you. I don’t want to make the same mistakes again.”

His voice cracked. He inhaled sharply.

“Please.”

Jesse stared at him, wide-eyed and taken aback, just for a moment, before she let go and threw herself into his arms, squeezing reassuringly, and holding him close, hoping that he could know how much she loved and adored him from the embrace.

“I will,” she kissed his cheek and tightened her grip. “I promise. I promise.”

He hadn’t realized that he was already crying until he hiccuped and sobbed, and he buried himself in her shoulder, her hair. Gripping her tight, he never wanted to let go.

Although her voice is muffled, the words are clear to the both of them, as they felt and heard her say, “I love you, Aiden.”

The same case applied to him.

“I love you too.”

He cried relentlessly, repeating, “I love you, I love you, I love you;” and she kept her arms around him, patient and loving. “So much.”

For what felt like an eternity, they stood at the entrance of their home, holding each other close in their arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> physical strength is one thing but stopping yourself from more public self-deprecation is 10,000 times more strenuous
> 
> **Number of Iterations: 49**


	10. digging a grave doesn't take much when you're the one being buried in it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aiden knew about the trope for any romance fiction, where the stories usually end when the couple finally get together and confess their feelings. Anything after that is never addressed, the adventures of an established relationship are never explored; et cetera, et cetera. He’s known about that for a long time.
> 
> This time, he might know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> daily updates were a mistake i am so sorry. i am legitimately sorry.  
> anyway 26 degrees celsius is the gateway to freezing to death dont @ me
> 
> **edit: long chapter im sorry**

One cloudy afternoon, the two had gotten so bored of laying around the house all day that Jesse impulsively crafted two wooden swords and threw one at Aiden, who couldn’t catch it and hurt the tips of his fingers as a result of trying to. “Let’s spar!” Jesse declared.

Which was how he ended up trying and failing to fight his girlfriend, in the woods, wearing only short shorts and an over-sized shirt, with a wooden sword whose durability was lowering by the second, no thanks to his rough efforts. His pride would’ve been hurt if he had any left, so he spent most of that time standing dumbly, barely figuring out a plan of attack before getting distracted by the familiar sound of Jesse’s mischievous laughter. He would get ambushed, she would laugh, and he would consider hearing that and seeing her smile as his compensation for his loss.

A few minutes down the line and his ego somehow resurrected itself, and then subsequently got hurt by her win streak; and his “desperate” need for her to shut up was executed via locked lips and a tight embrace.

One of their wooden swords fell with a clatter to the ground, but Aiden’s comprehension was too shot to really try to tell. Whatever. Jesse was kissing him back and she made really nice noises and also she was warm. It was nice.

As they spent the remainder of the day inside, in bed, completely invested in each other; neither of them noticed that it started to rain

when it wasn't supposed to rain.

* * *

When he was alone, Aiden really liked just sprawling all over the bed and laying with spread legs in weird positions, usually with a book in hand and the blankets and sheets messed up along the way. But doing that didn’t make it any less enjoyable for him to share the bed.

Sometimes, when Boris was still alive, the wolf would climb onto the bed and dig himself into the blankets and stay with Aiden as he read or drew. When he was still with Lukas, he liked having him with him too. Sure, at the beginning of their relationship his bed was too small for the both of them, but he liked sharing the space nonetheless. It was comforting in a way that a blanket couldn’t replicate, and the company he kept with him, as he slept, he truly valued and enjoyed.

It wasn’t any different with Jesse.

She was fast asleep, laying next to him on her side, arms wrapped around a purple stuffed rabbit.

(“Yeah, after the Witherstorm and Hadrian, purple was my least favorite color for awhile,” she admitted. The nonchalant tone in her voice was something he became accustomed to, that he too had ended up falling into whenever he talked about Lukas or Sky City.

“But I think the loops helped with that,” she said with a shrug. “Now I just don’t care anymore. I don’t hate it; honestly, it’s actually a pretty color when used right. Oh!”

Then she grinned, that and the exclamation an indication that she was going to ramble again, and very quickly the conversation went from ‘why her favorite color was black’ to “So there was this stuffed toy bunny I saw at Endercon and that was _just_ the right shade of purple-”

She punched him lightly and then hugged him tight when he gave it to her on their fifteenth loop together, saying behind the bunny, “I didn’t know you could count that far.” To which she received a light shove of her own.)

In reminiscence, he smiled, letting out a short, breathy laugh.

Aiden was lying on his back now, the book he was reading now closed on the bedside table. He put a hand up and lay it gently to Jesse’s face, lightly brushing her hair from her cheek. He smiled.

“I love you, Jess.”

It came out as a murmur, not any louder than her quiet breathing. If one were to watch from afar, they wouldn’t have been able to hear him say it. They would just see his figure move to his side over his girlfriend, an arm around her and his body covering her. Aiden kissed Jesse gently on the forehead, then lowered his head back on the pillow, sleepy eyes resting on her. His expression was accompanied by a small, but fond, loving smile.

Eventually, he fell asleep, unaware of the intruder in the room.

* * *

The rain outside was muffled by the walls, offering a calming atmosphere that worked together with the soft, flickering lights of the small lanterns around that could make anyone drowsy.

Case in point: Jesse stretched with a noise. "I don't wanna sleep," she complained, adjusting herself. Aiden fixed his arm around her, holding her by the shoulder.

He chuckled. "Listen to your body, Jesse. If it wants to sleep, ya gotta sleep."

"But I don't _wanna_.”

His lips tugged to a smile as he recalled her complaining over her shulker boxes’ worth of work. "Just earlier you were saying you wanted to sleep forever."

Jesse whined, babbling incomprehensible noises.

"Don't let me fall asleep, Aiden," she mumbles, letting her hand fall on his lap. "Please?"

A gentle rub of her shoulder.

"No promises."

In the hero’s “secret den,” in the New Order’s temple, the couple lay together; both fast asleep to the tune of the heavy rain.

* * *

It was like a twisted ambiance. The rain was rhythmic, like a song, except with no melody; just the same instrument layered on top of itself multiple times. The song harassed the walls and roofs, the trees with its raging winds, and it filled the world with water.

It never asked. It just did.

The storm was determined to leave its mark.

(You’re a terrible person.)

(I know.)

“Boris!”

The large wolf’s tail was a blur as it wagged incessantly in his cheer. He held the plush toy firmly in his mouth, teeth digging into the fabric; and played wildly in the room, throwing the toy around and chewing it as he pleased.

His owner, a spawn of ten years, sat on a bean bag at the corner of the room, laughing as he watched his dog fondly.

“Boris, stay away from the windows! You’ll get hurt.”

(You’re a terrible owner.)

(I know.)

They were out of materials to cover the windows up properly. They had no time, because the flood came too quickly, unannounced and unprecedented. They had no glass, only stone and iron doors to fortify their home; the windows ended up only partially covered with cobblestone slabs.

They couldn’t have helped it.

That was the excuse he always fed himself.

(If you weren’t so stupid, your friends wouldn’t be in jail.)

Jesse stirred in her sleep, oblivious and unaware.

(If you weren’t so negligent, he would still be alive.)

“Boris!”

(You were an idiot then and an idiot now.)

The wolf’s favorite toy, the toy he never went anywhere without, flew out the window; and the flood, unbiased, continued to flow.

(You deserve nothing.)

“ _BORIS!!_ ”

.

(I know.)

* * *

The temperature in Pneumonoultra dropped to 26° today, which was a little odd, but not necessarily unwelcome. Aiden sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket with a book and quill, breathing evenly through the nose and only opening his mouth to drink.

Jesse joined him on the couch not a minute later, with her own wool blanket around her. She draped it over his knees and lay on his side. “How are you feeling?”

Aiden raised a brow and shrugged lightly. “I’m fine? Why are you-”

Adjusting herself to look up at him, she gave a small frown, brows furrowed in concern as she raised a hand to his forehead; much to his chagrin. “Jess-”

“I mean, like, sickness wise. Are you okay? You didn’t, like, barf in a bucket while I wasn’t looking, did you?”

“Jess- I-” he laughed, embarrassed as he tried to move her hand away, “I’m fine, really. I haven’t puked in weeks.”

Her demeanor softened, and only then did she go back to lying on his side and pulling the blanket closer to herself. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

She shot him a small smile, which he couldn’t resist to return.

It was already evident to them that a constant for the loops was that he would be doing a little better before Sky City, and only the worst of his sickness hit _after_ , because he pushed his limits. But even Aiden couldn’t deny that he felt legitimately better in this forest, which they both could see clearly as they rebuilt their house over and over in a single night. He wasn’t weak or drowsy, he could stand straight and move uninhibited for longer than five minutes; which was very unlike how he was in the previous loops before they settled here.

There was something about this forest.

Aiden wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

“I’m just happy you’re doing better,” Jesse mumbled as she wrapped him in a hug. He decided to push his thoughts aside for now as he returned the embrace.

Whether that really was a bark in the distance that he heard or just his imagination, Aiden didn’t dare try to figure out which it was. He set the book and cup aside and buried himself in Jesse’s warmth, hoping to block out the nightmarish ambiance of the Pneumono woods.

* * *

The time loops had one certain effect on anybody subjected to it: one’s sense of time and memory get fucked.

What was ‘yesterday’ or ‘today’ or ‘tomorrow’ are made meaningless by the repeated events that brand themselves into one’s head. Instead of ‘six o’ clock,’ it’s ‘the breakup.’ Instead of ‘tomorrow at noon,’ it’s ‘the fifth portal.’ What used to be events that were supposed to be laid out in a timeline, became the markers themselves in a chart bigger than itself tenfold. They remembered things now by whether they happened before or after a certain event; not by the actual day.

Just as so, that new routine, those new memories, took up space in their heads; and they could only remember so much. The human brain wasn’t built to live through centuries, millenia. Sure, people lived to their hundreds. Without the new-spawn mortality rate, that was the average lifespan; but nobody was meant to live to the thousands.

(So if they memorized an entire script for a time loop that had to go through alone, that would take up their memory.

If somebody else came in and changed up the entire routine, their memory would follow suit.

If some sort of change happened in that existing routine, their memories would be erased and updated.

Like so.)

And Aiden’s memory was already shit as-is.

After trying to keep count to fifteen and getting Jesse that stuffed toy, his head completely gave up. He knows that it’s been a few loops since he gave her the bunny, but the exact number of iterations was beyond him. If one were to ask him how many loops he’d been through with Jesse, he couldn’t say. He lost count so many iterations ago, at the very least before he confessed to Jesse.

That was all he knew.

There was only one thing he’d been holding on to this whole time, though. One thing he wouldn’t let himself forget, one thing that - if he let the loops take it away from him - he couldn’t live with himself if he lost.

“I had a wolf.”

They were about to separate again at the backdoor of the temple, when seeing the tall grass and the flowers, when lunch with t-bone steaks in a red-carpeted den, made everything too unbearable to forget.

“You asked me some time ago if I had a pet, do you remember?”

He turned to Jesse, and their eyes met. His, downcast and sad; and hers, understanding and patient in solidarity.

“His name was Boris,” Aiden continued with a sad smile. He breathed a laugh, trying to keep from crying. “He was 4 and a half years old when he died.”

Falling into the lake below Sky City always felt like he was drowning in a flood.

At the back of his mind, he wondered if that’s how Boris felt when he died.

~~(At the back of his mind, he wonders if that’s how _she_ felt when she died.) ~~

~~“Oh,” the missing roommate chuckles, “It was much worse.”~~

* * *

**Against his better judgement, he thought everything would be okay.**

**And it wasn't.**

* * *

“I’m sorry, Aiden.”

Aiden looked up from the dishes, blinking, stunned, at his girlfriend. He put the dishes and sponge down and straightened, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed. A frown made its way to his face as he said slowly, “What are you talking about?”

“I- don’t feel so well,” Jesse says, fingers tangling together in an anxious manner, “I’ve been feeling sick for awhile, and- and I didn’t tell you, because- be-”

Her breathing stuttered. She inhaled sharply.

“Jess-”

As quick as he could, Aiden rid his hands of soap and water and rushed to his partner’s side, holding her gently by the shoulders as she began to shake and tremble.

Putting a hand to her neck and forehead, Aiden’s worry and confusion increased as he felt nothing abnormal.

“It feels too hot,” she continues with a cracking voice, “It’s so uncomfortable and I don’t know how to fix it.”

The words fell out of Jesse’s mouth as she breathed unevenly, choking out her words and crying softly. “I’ve taken showers, I’m wearing shorts, I’m drinking water- n-nothing’s working. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!”

Her lips were cracked, he noticed when he got a good look at them. It’s strange, because they weren’t just awhile ago. Her skin made her condition evident as well, a sickly yellow or gray overlaying her entirely. Bags under her eyes made themselves known to him beyond the shadows of her bangs; and her hair was oily, or stringy, dry and odd to the touch, even though he _knows_ she just came from a long shower right before lunch earlier.

It became all the more peculiar as all those signs suddenly disappeared, and she seemed fine and normal and healthy; as if trying to contradict her words.

“How long?” Aiden finally asked.

Jesse looked away, downwards and ashamed, as she shrugged weakly. “Two weeks?”

A heavy breath escaped Aiden, “ _Shit_.”

“I’m sorry, Aiden!” Jesse cried, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I-”

“Hey- Jess, hey, It’s okay.” Aiden lay a kiss on her forehead, shushing her, soft and short and gentle, as he momentarily held her close. “It's okay, babe. I’m not mad. It’s okay.”

When he pulled away and looked into her eyes, he thought for a second that they were bright red.

* * *

At some point, Jesse had fallen onto the couch, woozy and feeling faint. “I can’t,” she breathed weakly. She cried as Aiden brought her into their bedroom and laid her gently on the bed.

After he closed the grate shut and let the conditioning unit cool the air, he turned to Jesse, who lay on the bed with labored breathing. Her face shone pain, lax in exhaustion; her eyes dazed and half-lidded, her mouth partly open. When Aiden checked her temperature again, she was still the same; normal. The normal kind of warm, the warm that wasn’t sick.

Yet her behavior - not being able to do anything extraneous, moving around limply, the occasional pained grimace when she moved too quickly - implied otherwise.

“How are you feeling?”

Jesse breathed heavily, struggling to keep her eyes open. “I don’t know,” she murmured, “Fuck.”

Aiden had to force himself to remove his hand from her arm and stand. “I’ll get your water,” he said. Without any objection from her, he brisk walked to the kitchen, closing the door behind him slowly and carefully.

* * *

At some point, she started to bleed.

He was staying with her in the room, by that point, when she wailed. She turned over and gripped her chest tight, the cloth of her shirt bunched into a weak fist. Jesse cried and could barely form words.

Her chest was bleeding. Right where her heart would be was a large red splatter that kept spreading, staining her skin, her clothes, the sheets, her hair. She could only breathe out, desperately, “It hurts,” and “Help me.”

He tried his best. He really did, but no potion he had with him worked. He tried to identify the wound and pulled her shirt to see where the stain was coming from, but there was nothing; no wound, not a gash. Just her skin bleeding, turning red, and staining.

And Jesse crying in agony.

Tears cascaded her face as she begged for the pain to go away. She wasn’t any less loud as he ran for Beacontown, his girlfriend in his arms begging him not to for fear of her friends’ reactions to him. He ran for the same backdoor he always met her at and, upon arrival at the locked iron door, tried to ignore the rapid beating of his heart, his partner’s labored breathing and pained whimpers, the guilt that ate him and the illness that resurfaced; as they reached his ears.

“OPEN UP!” He screamed as loud as he could, “Please, Jesse’s hurt!”

Bad idea. Screaming was a bad idea. His throat hurt now and he was out of breath, panting as he tried to keep it together. He couldn’t carry her for much longer, she was too heavy for his lanky stature, and he was growing weak with the ache in his head.

 _‘Please, somebody open the door_ ,’ he begged voicelessly.

Lady Luck must have been on his side that day, because somebody - Axel - heard his cry and came. Aiden’s face must have read desperation, because the griefer didn’t hesitate a moment further in opening the door. Letting him in, the larger man took his friend in his arms was able to bring her inside; carrying her and leading Aiden down to the basement. The moment Jesse was laid gently on the bed at the corner, Aiden nearly collapsed at her side.

He heard Ivor mutter a swear as he felt his eyes on him, on Jesse. He breathed heavily, trying to pull himself together. He yearned for a drink of water, but he held himself back. Jesse was more important right now.

“What happened?” One of them finally asked.

“I don’t know. She just started bleeding-” Aiden shook his head, still out of breath and weak, “There’s no wound either, I checked. She’s been sick for weeks, I- I don’t know what’s going on.”

He’d sat himself on the floor at the foot of the bed, his chest tight. He said nothing else. In that moment, his eyes met Axel’s.

He had no idea if the glare was accusatory or in concern.

Aiden decided that it didn’t matter, and moved his focus to his girlfriend on the bed.

Ivor put two fingers to Jesse’s neck, barely feeling her heartbeat. Checking her chest did confirm the boy’s statement, though the man was still taken aback by the plain, ordinary skin under the seeping blood.

“What the hell?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Aiden mumbled, “I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know-”

“Hey,” the old man turned to him, “I need you to calm down and take deep breaths, can you do that?”

Without a response, Aiden tried. Ivor continued his line of questioning as he did so.

“Did any potions work for her?”

Aiden bit his lip as he tried to think and recall the past day. Shaking his head when he remembered, he admitted, “I had a few potions of healing, but I used them all up.”

After a beat, Ivor took a potion from the belt over his shoulder and carefully tilted Jesse’s head upwards. She complied without a fuss, barring a whimper and a soft sob.

Aiden tried to stand as he watched Ivor pour the drink, staggering closer while Jesse, subconsciously, begrudgingly took it.

“Instant health,” Ivor said to nobody. He leaned in to Jesse, asking in a gentle voice, “How are you feeling?”

She only gave a grimace in response.

Jesse’s eyes struggled to stay open, lids fluttering closed as the potion entered her system. The fingers on her neck, feeling her heartbeat, remained.

“Jess…”

The woman’s head moved slowly to look at her partner, the only presence she could understand at the moment. Everything was fuzzy and blurry, she could barely see or smell or sense where she was, who she was with. All she knew was that Aiden was here.

A small smile cracked through before she lost consciousness completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~have you ever heard of projecting your problems to a character? because i have. i have the shittiest memory on earth. not even a story outline can save me. F.~~  
>  if you read through this whole fic in one sitting you can watch my descent into exhaustion  
> 
> 
> **Number of Iterations: 110**


	11. we are gathered here today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the dec24 mood is listening to parties are for losers and game theory's until dawn video at the same time

**the best ambush is the one that never gets caught**

* * *

Aiden, pale-faced and terrified, sat next to Jesse in the basement, staring at nothing as he held her hand; limp just like his. With the Instant Health potion running through her, Jesse’s heartbeat had stabilized, at least enough to not be terrifyingly concerning. Yet still, that didn’t quell Aiden’s anxiety at all.

“Should I get the others?” Axel had asked after a stunned, tense silence. Though the question seemed to have been directed at Ivor, his eyes flickered between him and Aiden, at the boy who he used to compete against for ten straight years. The same boy who teased him constantly and made jabs at him for his skill and size was here, hunched over one of his best friends, clearly worried and in distress.

Thinking on it, about Jesse and how she was, he found that he wasn’t surprised at all.

“Tell them.” Ivor ordered. Axel nodded, and with one last look at Aiden - who lay his head by Jesse’s arm - he turned and sprinted up the stairs.

The basement was now down to three.

Ivor looked to the only conscious one remaining. “She had no temperature, but she complained about symptoms of fever and faint?”

The young man barely lifted his head to nod.

Ivor watched from afar. Jesse breathing slowly and steadily, chest rising and falling; and the boy whose name he couldn’t quite remember, obviously worried for her, having ran all the way from _somewhere_ with the dead weight of an unconscious warrior in his arms.

Thinking about it, Ivor stopped moving, his hand frozen right after he slid the glass bottle into the brewing stand.

“Could you tell me your name, again?” He asked as he turned to the boy.

“Uh- Aiden.”

Aiden bit his lip and visibly curled in fear, though Ivor couldn’t decipher why. “My name’s Aiden.”

“Aiden,” He crossed his arms, leaning against the countertop, “Where did you come from? You said Jesse was sick for weeks.”

The man stiffened as he looked away. He squirmed as he tried to find an answer, fumbling with Jesse’s hand in his. “I- I was- We were at home,” he finally said in a stutter. “ _My-_ home, at my house. I live in the woods.”

One question in particular came to Ivor’s mind, but he shook his head at himself, deeming it too private and prying to ask just yet. He turned back to the brewing stand and summoned the interface, checking the progress of the potions. Instead, he asked, “How far away- how far did you have to run?”

“Uh- Not very far,” Aiden lied.

Ivor didn’t hide his disbelief, but decided not to comment.

(Was that where Jesse kept running off to in the evening and weekends?)

* * *

Aiden felt a chill run through his spine, stiffening when he heard Lukas’ voice from the stairs.

“Ivor?” He called as he climbed down, “Is it true that-?”

Lukas stopped at the entry of the basement when his eyes landed on Aiden, recognizing his dark, unruly hair; his lean figure, clad in an Ocelots jacket.

It felt like the silence dragged on forever. Like they were there, in that basement, for decades in a thick silence.

 _Jesse’s sick_ , he pushes to the forefront of his mind, _prioritize that. She’s all that’s important._

“What are you doing here?”

**_But it hurts._ **

(I thought you got over this?)

“I’m here for Jesse,” he says curtly. The tone surprises him, almost scares him, even; with how straightforward and steady it came out, through his trembling, fidgeting, terrified form. His leg jumped anxiously and he was sweating bullets.

Everything was crashing down. Aiden’s surprised that it hadn’t before, but the time came, everything- the consequences -caught up to him. He’d be found, eventually.

This was that ‘eventually.’

He wanted nothing more than to pick Jesse up in his arms and hide away in the den, or at home, and hope everything blows over, that she miraculously gets better.

But he never got what he wanted.

(Even now, you keep making everything about yourself.)

(Shut up!)

(Idiot.)

Lukas’ presence behind him, from the other end of the room, was imposing and intimidating, a prickling sort of sensation he’d come to get used to thanks to his post-Witherstorm illness.

It wasn’t the same, but they didn’t have to be, to be equally as unwanted.

“Why are you _here_ , Aiden?” Lukas outright demanded. Both boys, by that point, completely forgot about the third occupant, the owner of the room.

“Jesse’s sick,” Ivor interjected. He stepped forward, not really blocking Aiden’s trembling back from view, but his neutral glare and taller shadow scared Lukas enough to swerve his priorities. “Aiden brought her here and we’re working on finding out why. And I would really _appreciate_ it-!” He glanced back at the shivering Ocelot and then blonde before him, giving both of them equally intimidating glares, “If no arguments were started in the basement.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

Aiden may as well have dropped his head and sighed when Lukas talked back, and with an unanswerable question to boot. Very quickly, he shoved the thought away and focused everything on Jesse.

He found that her sleeping, bloodied form did not help his heartache at all.

“She’s bleeding without a wound, and suffering a fever without the actual symptoms.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Speaking of, that reminds me,” Ivor turned away from Lukas, then, and took something from the workbench and moved to the bed. He held out the tools in his open palm and looked to Aiden, who blinked in bewilderment. “May I?”

They were scissors and clips. At that moment, Lukas and Aiden both paled in concern. Aiden looked slowly up to the old man, “What is that.. for..?”

“I’d like to test her blood.”

“You’re cutting her open!?”

“Wha-?” Ivor’s confusion immediately reverted back into exasperation, “No! I’m cutting a piece of her bloodied clothing to get a sample. Would you kindly move?”

“O-oh.”

To Lukas’ surprise, Aiden obeyed without a quip. His expression was obvious, wary hesitation and, what was that? _Concern_? He stood cautiously to the side as he watched Ivor snip off a piece of Jesse’s shirt, one which had over half of it drenched completely in blood. The old man muttered a quick thanks and returned to the desk, dragging over some materials Lukas couldn’t be bothered to understand.

Looking back at the display he still couldn’t wrap his head around, it seemed like Aiden wasn’t in a mood to waste any time, as immediately he was back at Jesse’s bedside, as if there had been no interruption.

Despite himself, he was already grumbling and moving to stand at the foot of the bed.

(If only Jesse’s sleeping form was enough to sway his focus.)

“What are you doing here?” He asked again in a low voice. Aiden might have flinched, or maybe he rolled his eyes. Lukas didn’t know why he cared about which was which. “What _happened_? What did you do?”

Aiden’s response was immediate, his head snapping his way as narrow, pale eyes stabbed into his. “I did _nothing_ ,” he growled, “Jesse was sick and I didn’t know how to help her, so I ran here.”

The glares were mutual; though if Lukas had bothered to look closer (which he did, much to his chagrin), Aiden’s was less disdainful, more stressed and exhausted than anything else.

Concerned over Jesse? _Aiden_?

“What happened?” Lukas repeated. “Why did you have her in the first place?”

If Lukas didn’t know any better (which he didn’t), his silence was indicative immediately of his guilt; but it wasn’t. It was a thoughtful silence, as if he was trying to figure out what to say.

“Because she’s my girlfriend,” Aiden decided to answer plainly. He smiled, unflinching, as Lukas visibly reacted. “Have you ever heard of a time loop?”

* * *

Axel came back with Olivia, shortly after Petra came in. All three of them had very mixed emotions to the explanation the Ocelot gave them. It didn’t take much to know that Petra, as Lukas’ closest confidante outside the Ocelots, trying to not start a bloodbath in Ivor’s basement; giving Aiden glares that, barely while they barely lasted a second as she forced herself to look away, had the same energy as Lukas. (Both of them were very similar in temper, Aiden realized with a mental, humorless chuckle.) Yet even with that annoyance - because he didn’t believe she was as angry as Lukas was - she seemed utterly confused. She probably didn’t expect the time loop aspect of his story. He considered that a win.

Olivia and Axel were harder to read. Initially, he couldn’t quite decipher the expression on the griefer’s face, but as he evaluated their faces now, after he explained everything, he realized Axel was uncomfortable. Bothered by Aiden’s presence, worried over his best friend, and confused by the circumstances of the sudden turn of events. Aiden breathed a laugh. He sympathized with the man; if Axel or Olivia suddenly came into the house with any of his friends in their arms and saying they were their partner and that they’d been stuck in a timeloop, he’d be pretty bewildered too. Poor Axel.

And the engineer. The third and final member of the New Order.

(For some reason, Aiden thought that there was something… odd, or missing; but he had no idea what or why. He didn’t feel sick, but the empty feeling returned with a force that nearly cut his breath short.)

She was entirely blank.

Throughout the explanation, her expression remained neutral. Patient, but not in the same way Jesse always was. Patient like she was waiting for something on purpose, waiting to find a slip-up, for everything to click into place. Her mouth was a thin, straight line, her eyes dark and empty.

In a weird way, it seemed unfitting.

This person that he was so used to seeing everyday, who he knew as intelligent and talented, but self-conscious and doubting; seemed to have been… almost _replaced_ , by this new personality. Something cold and calculating, unfazed by something like a competition rival being the romantic partner of her best friend and leader.

The expression was worn by her face, but it wasn’t _her_ that was wearing it. _She_ didn’t put it on.

And yet here she was.

Eyes glaring blankly at him.

Unnerved, he looked away.

“For how long?” Ivor asked, seemingly unbothered by the thick silence that he just broke through. Aiden shrugged.

“Beats me. Honestly, I lost count a long time ago.” Absentmindedly, he rubbed Jesse’s hand with his thumb affectionately, a subconscious attempt for her to wake up. “If it were already in the hundreds, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said with a lazy grin. Axel’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“Holy shit.”

Aiden breathed a laugh through his nose as he turned his attention to his unconscious girlfriend. “Yeah, pretty much sums it up.”

“Can you prove it?”

He turned to look at Olivia. Despite how it looked like Petra and Lukas were both giving him accusatory looks, the engineer herself didn’t seem so hostile. Aiden was both surprised and even more unnerved.

“Um, let me think,” Aiden bit his lip. “What do you mean? The timeloops or my relationship with Jesse?”

Olivia gave it a minute, thinking herself; then shrugged and looked back to him. “Both.”

Aiden looked down at his and Jesse’s fingers intertwined.

This was a much more difficult question to answer than he thought.

“Jesse’s favorite animal is a rabbit,” he started, as if reciting by heart. “She met Reuben at a waterfall sometime in June or July after running away from therapy; and Petra,” she jumped when he said her name, “You’re not actually totally happy with Jesse’s leadership. Ivor is researching the Old Builders, and Lukas still hates my guts and you secretly wish to throw me, Maya, and Gill into a boiling pit of lava and obsidian; and I know that because you tell Jesse three weeks from now.”

(“By the way, because of that, _fuck you_ ,” Aiden would have added.)

A stunned silence took the group, which Aiden utilized to look at Lukas’ reaction, which was _priceless_ with gaping shame and guilt brewing in his eyes. Petra herself was squirming, her crossed arms turning from an intimidating stance to her holding herself in discomfort; still, she glared at Aiden. Ivor kept his eyes on the brewing stand before him on the table.

“I believe him.”

Everybody turned to Axel, most of them surprised; one of them, Aiden, relieved with heightened respect. Axel returned all their glances with a neutral expression, then his brow furrowed, and he nodded. “I believe him.”

“I do too,” Ivor added softly. Olivia nodded silently, and all eyes were now on Petra and Lukas.

The former looked away with a huff. The latter grumbled.

Aiden knew his gaze was in general direction, and he could hope all he wanted for Lukas to be looking at him, but he knew well and good that his gaze was really on Jesse.

And honestly, he couldn’t blame him.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Lukas sighed, and his glare then turned to Aiden, “but Jesse’s sick, and I’ll cooperate to help her until she’s better.”

The Ocelot shrugged. “Good enough for me.”

* * *

When Aiden explained the whole story, he was forced to leave no detail spared, at Olivia’s insistence. Which meant he had to tell them the location of their “secret hideout” (read: home), and admit to having a sexual relationship with Jesse; and for him to see Lukas’ reactions, which would have been hilarious if not for the fact that Aiden himself was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation as it went on.

(“Are you  _ sure _ she didn’t get it from you?” Lukas said accusingly, “If you’ve been living together this whole time and you’ve been intimate in every respect, your sickness-”

“Hey, her sickness looks  _ nothing _ like mine!” He spat back. “She didn’t get it from me. I swear.”

~~ Even though he himself was willing to believe that this was his fault. ~~ )

The Pneumonoultra forest became a point of interest, however; one which Aiden was surprised he didn’t see coming. He mentioned how he felt near- _cured_ when staying in those woods, how cold it tended to be there; and, something he only realized then, how rainy it got even though previous loops had no such rainy season during those periods.

“That actually might have something to do with it,” Olivia thought aloud. “If there’s something wrong with that forest, anything weird; we should investigate that. It could be the cause of Jesse’s sickness, or at the very least have _some_ relation to it.”

“You sayin’ we should check it out?” Axel asked. Olivia nodded, “Exactly. You and Petra, unless Lukas is willing to leave Jesse alone for two seconds-”

“ _Ha ha_ ,” Lukas rolled his eyes. They landed as a glare on Aiden, “No way.”

Aiden decided to ignore him. In fact, he couldn’t be bothered to mind when Olivia was suggesting the idea of searching the woods he and Jesse lived in; and, by proxy, the house too.

“Hold on,” the Order turned to him, “You aren’t searching our house.”

Olivia raised a brow, but Lukas was the one to make his suspicion clear and ask with a raised voice, “ _Why is that_?”

“Because it’s _our_ home.” He returned his ex-boyfriend’s glare with just as much, if not more, force. Crossing his arms, he turned to Axel, who was so far the only person next to Ivor who he had any remote trust or respect for. “I’m not letting you search the house unless Gill and Maya go with you.”

Petra groaned.

“You’ll find them somewhere south-east of Beacontown. Tell them everything I told you.”

(If Jesse’s friends were going to know everything, he wanted his to know too. And besides, as much as Jesse loved these guys, he didn’t trust them. Not when they obviously didn’t trust him.

...Hah. And he thought his group was being unreasonable.)

“If those are your terms, we’ll honor them,” Ivor cut in before anybody else could. Olivia nodded in agreement; and that seemed to be the final word in.

(“Get better soon, Jess,” Axel said in a low voice. He looked up from his friend’s unconscious body and turned to Aiden. With a determined nod, he turned away and left the basement.)

Now they were down to four.

* * *

Being stuck in a room with Lukas was the most uncomfortable experience Aiden has ever had. Which, on one hand was extremely indicative of how much things have changed; while on the other this whole day has been uncomfortable.

Aiden would say that Jesse was lucky that she wasn’t the one experiencing everything going on right now, but she was the reason it was happening in the first place.

Heaving a sigh, Aiden lifted his head from his hands and looked to his girlfriend; still unconscious, still breathing, although now, she’s stopped bleeding. He’d changed her out of her bloodstained shirt hours ago, and thankfully that didn’t stain either. The bleeding hadn’t returned for awhile now.

(In fact, didn’t the bleeding stop when he got out of the forest?)

A chill ran down Aiden’s spine.

“Why’d you cut out a piece of her shirt?” Lukas asked. He was probably getting affected by the silence too.

“Micro-analysis. You could call it reverse-crafting,” Ivor began to explain. “Instead of putting materials together to create one thing, I’m taking something apart and reducing it to its core materials.”

Olivia frowned, tilting her head upwards to glower at the old man. “How’d you figure that out? Not a lot of people are interested in questioning the functions of reality.”

“I’ve learned many things in my life,” he said in a low voice. Aiden glanced at Olivia, at him, but he didn’t seem to have moved much since earlier. “I’m isolating the blood from the cloth. Jesse was bleeding without a wound; either something is wrong with her skin or her body or whatever, or this blood has something wrong with it.”

He turned briefly to look at the three young adults. “I intend to find out.”

And with that, he turned back to his work.

A huff, or a scoff, came from the other side; from Olivia, who pushed herself off the wall with crossed arms. “Good luck with that.”

Aiden frowned. “You don’t think he’ll find anything?”

“I’m not optimistic,” she answered seriously. She turned to the doctor, “What are you going to do once you isolate the blood?”

Lukas gasped when Ivor turned around with a bloody finger and a test tube filled to an eighth with blood. He shook the tube lightly, raising a brow; then faced back to the desk. Olivia shook her head, “Why am I not surprised.”

Aiden bit his lip.

“I hope you find something,” he said sincerely.

Ivor closed his eyes as he wiped his finger clean.

“I hope so too.”

* * *

(She’s not going to wake up.)

(SHUT UP.)

It’s been hours.

There was nothing wrong with the blood. It was just normal, regular, human blood.

There was nothing… _wrong_ … with her….

She was _fine_.

_So why wasn’t she waking up?_

(This is all useless. Futile. A waste of time.)

(SHUT UP!)

Aiden fell asleep at Jesse’s bedside multiple times. Had he even eaten, at any point in time? Did he get to drink water. He musn’t have. He would remember, right?

God, this was all messed up.

Everything was going dark.

The emptiness was overwhelming him as time crawled on. It was a pit in his stomach, then a hollowness in his muscles; weakness in his bones, and an absence of anything running through his blood vessels.

He felt so. weak.

It felt like the void all over again. The same void, the same darkness, with only the waves running through the gridlines for light. With no shadows and no textures. A blank slate leaving him hollow and void.

Void.

void.

(Now do you know how it feels?)

Felt like prison all over again.

Waiting. Waiting for Jesse to come back. Waiting in the hunger and dirt for something to happen, for something to change. Waiting because he had no hand in anything.

He really didn’t.

(“It wasn’t me this time!”)

If there was anything going on in the background, if those were Maya’s or Gill’s voices he was hearing, he couldn’t tell for sure. He didn’t want to- no, he did. He wanted things to go back to normal. He wanted Sky City to have never happened. He wanted Jesse to wake up.

(I can help you.)

No, shut up. Nothing works. Nothing works. This was all going to blow over in a blink. It was a dream, some sort of nightmare, and he’d wake up in prison, or at home, with Jesse by his side; healthy and able to wake up and not feeling sick at all.

(Stop being so delusional.

I can help you.)

Aiden’s eyes slipped shut- or, no, were they already closed?

Everything was dark and foggy. All he could register was Jesse’s hand in his.

With nothing else, he squeezed her hand, absorbed and cherished the feeling of her skin on his. The calluses, the healed scars; the hands that held his, that offered him a bottled drink at a festival, that pulled him close.. .

They were limp.

(I can help you.)

When Aiden could see again, he saw himself.

(What are you? Being competent for once?)

...No, he said that aloud. He said that to the mirror image in front of him.

It laughed. _She_ laughed.

“I was always competent,” the mirror image beamed, “It’s just that nobody ever recognized me for it.”

It held out a hand, grey with wither and decay; and without thinking, Aiden took it.

One hand in Jesse’s. The other in the mirror’s.

When the hand squeezed, Aiden understood. It wasn’t a mirror. It was a demon.

A demon with an angel’s wings.

It smiled. She smiled.

“I know how to get you and Jesse out of these loops,” it said with an empty smile.

Aiden frowned; but his face didn’t m- did he have a face? ...No. No, he didn’t. He was just… _feeling_ it. The sensation was there, but the physical body was gone.

Yet still, his hand held Jesse’s. And the other held his.

“What makes you say that?” He asked cautiously.

The smile widened into a grin. A wicked, yellow, rotten grin.

“Because I know why she’s sick, and I know how to fix that too.”

Aiden glared at the mirror image, and the reflection glared back.

“Tell me.”

Aiden woke up in bed, in the cold July air, next to a sleeping Lukas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mistakes have been made, but that's fine. that's completely normal  
> reality is often disappointing after all  
> and fate just finds itself a way to execute what it wants from us
> 
> **Number of Iterations: 117**


	12. so help me god

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when you are given no further instructions  
> you'd just go back to the start and repeat previous objectives
> 
> merry christmas

**biting into the apple, you realize that it was better off unbothered in its tree**

* * *

The air was cold.

He- He couldn’t remember if it was always cold. What season was it? Summer? Fall? He couldn’t come up with an answer. If there was, it had no form, no words. It wasn’t corporeal, and if it were, it would be a haze, a blur, indescribable and masked by fog.

Was it even there in the first place?

(No.

So stop asking.)

It was cold. That was that.

He felt whole again. As it was with every restart of the loop, the sickness was gone; the _emptiness_ was gone. It felt like everything was where it should have been, as it was meant to be. The room was complete. Nobody was gone.

But this time, it felt different; it felt like- why did it feel like there was a third occupant in the room? It felt _too much_ now, like what was there was more than what was needed. What was there _shouldn’t_ be there.

(Keep quiet.

I’m not a third occupant.

You just have a complete room.)

Complete. Complete. Complete.

_Complete the loop._

**_End_ ** _the loop._

The mirror before him is cracked, to the brink of complete breakage. More than that, actually. It was like broken shards of a mirror were put back together again, glued crudely, childishly.

The room was multiplied to infinity. The occupants were repeated oved and over.

His mirror image- the ghost, the demon -stares back at him. His eyes water. Everything hurts.

(It’s okay.)

The room was complete.

End the loop.

**_This will save her._ **

* * *

He pulled her in, enveloped her in an embrace when they met again at the registrar.

“I was so worried,” he wept, “I thought you’d never wake up.”

“@8 **_d_ ** e _n_?” Bewilderment was obvious in her voice, and as they pulled away gently she looked up at him, searching his eyes, searching for an answer. As the tears continued to stream, she wiped them away, holding him gently in her hands. “What are you talking about?”

And he froze dead in his tracks.

“Aa _a_ **A** @ **@** @A _a@i_ **_i_ ** III **_ii8_ ** _i_ 8₱3 **;**?”

(Everything hurt, even as he felt whole.

She’s here now. Why are you crying?)

“You-” he was trembling, “You were sick, you were bleeding, I- I had to take you to the temple. You wouldn’t wake up.”

Her brows furrowed, “Wouldn’t wake up?” She tilted her head-

She couldn’t remember? _She couldn’t remember?_

\- and she frowned. Her hands fell to his and she squeezed. “Tell me everything.”

So he did. They sat together on the featureless grass and he told her everything about that day. About her sickness and about her friends, and about how he fell unconscious too and woke back up at the start of the loops. It all spilled out of him in punctuation-less strings of words, laced with despair and fear and worry.

(Funny how he seems to have a never-ending supply of that.

You’re so funny, little brother.)

“It wasn’t a nightmare, I swear,” He moaned, his head in his hands and his eyes watering. His skull ached as he tried to remember (but his chest was full, far from empty and very aware). “It felt too real to be a nightmare, like- like when we’re together. It wasn’t part of the script, it was- it was _real_ -!”

“I don’t doubt that it was, baby,” she took his hand again and rubbed gently, drawing out of him a sigh; though he was barely reassured. “But I just can’t remember any of that.”

He sighed heavily and closed his eyes; and squeezed back. “Yeah, I wouldn’t expect you to. It’s okay.”

She looked up at him, into his downcast, darker eyes; and she didn’t believe him. “Is it okay?”

(Yes it is.)

“No, it’s not.”

* * *

Everything got progressively worse the more the seconds ran by.

The room was full, its wall made of mirrors that reflected him, into her, into _it_. The bars only encouraged the repetitive pattern, making kaleidoscopes of confusion and terror and grief everywhere he looked.

She was here. _The demon_ is here.

As his eyes locked with 9”8=8@’s, he could feel the absence of the emptiness, the lingering presence that was but a shadow on his back. When their eyes locked, everything was okay. He felt like life was breathing new life, revitalized, revived.

_She_ was revived.

Even as he walked away to his and his friends’ booth, it didn’t go away.

As reassuring as it should have been, he didn’t feel any better.

(Stop worrying about it.)

He stood on the unfinished rainbow beacon, watching his girlfriend build, not minding if it paused the loop at all. When she realized it, she turned to him, just in time for his line; which he recited with a semi-forced smirk.

An inkling of regret grew like poison in his chest when she smiled sweetly, and he flushed and looked away.

(Guilty, guilty, guilty.)

Looking down on his hands as his ex reminded him to keep working, he realized he was trembling all over; yet he couldn’t crumble to his knees and cry.

He wasn’t allowed to.

To his surprise, she pulled him aside at Endercon, when he jumpscared her right before the butcher scene. The void took over and the convention-goers went still, and all that was left were him and her, her hand holding his arm in a grip.

“Babe, are you sure it’s okay?” A cold sweat came over him as she asked, “Don’t you want to figure out what happened there? It could be important.”

Her dark eyes glistening, her brows furrowed and the small frown, her face reading concern; broke his heart, along with the voice telling him that everything was okay.

(Just, in two different ways.)

Even as he felt whole, his soul felt like it was going to fall apart, like cracks were breaking through slowly, spreading with each moment that passed.

He gulped and, as gently as he could, pulled away from her, holding limply her hand in his.

“I don’t know if we can,” he answered shakily, “I- I mean, your friends couldn’t, how could we? What if it’s just another weird timeline thing?”

She must have seen through him- no, of course she saw through him. She was smarter than that, smarter than _him_ , she always was. She saw right through him and knew he wasn’t okay. His fingers that trembled in her hand were more than enough of a tell.

“We won’t know unless we try,” she insists. “What’s a few loops dedicated to trying to find answers? If we don’t find anything, we’ll at least have each other. We’ll _still_ have each other- right, Ai **i** **_iId_ ** D _\- —?_ ”

He inhaled sharply. For a split second, everything hurt.

(But did it even hurt at all if it only lasted half a second? How does he know it hurt?)

“Maybe we shouldn’t build the house this time,” she mused, a hand to her chin, “We can just hang out in the den and stuff, or the waterfall-”

“No!”

She blinked, startled. He paled and shut his eyes in shame. “Shit, I’m sorry- It’s just-”

Her hand squeezed his just a little; reassuring, patient.

It only served to make him feel worse, but he couldn’t let her know.

“I want to spend time with you, **J** _3_ # **s** ,” he stammered, “I don’t know how I can- I can’t think of not having you by my side, I can’t- I can’t be alone-”

(You won’t be.)

“You won’t be, babe,” she said softly. She put up a hand to gently hold his face, “I’m here, I’m right here.”

(Keep it the same. Pretend that everything was fine.)

As much as he protested against it, against his own cries, he lay in her arms and cried in the void for hours.

Feeling her chest rise and fall, her hands carding fingers through his hair and running soothingly over his back; were the only reminders he had that she was still alive.

(Cherish it. You won’t ever get it back.)

( _Shut up._ )

* * *

The timeloops were indescribably agonizing.

(Let me take the reins.)

He didn’t know he was so tired. He didn’t know he could _be_ so tired.

(Yes, you have. You have before, you just don’t remember.

It was just never in the context of a time loop.)

How could he? How many loops had passed? She’d gone through eons of them, and he couldn’t take a couple dozen? How pathetic.

(She was just lucky to have so much resilience.

You have me.)

It’s okay-

(No, it’s not. Stop lying to yourself.)

The Witherstorm was the same. Everything was the same. As if she hadn’t gotten sick with no explanation, as if the loops hadn’t changed at all. The words of his friends were empty; the interactions meaningless; 

it was 

all

a

blur.

(Stop lying to yourself.

Listen to me.

Let me take care of everything.)

He ran.

The air was… stagnant- no, it wasn’t. It _felt_ stagnant, it was a dry sort of cold; felt harsh enough on his skin to hurt, to be uncomfortable prickly with goosebumps. Stumbling through the withering woods and crumbling old villages, alone and tired and dirty, he came to dread what would come. The illness, the moment the adjacent bed is made empty, the moment every part of him is ripped away; when everything begins to hurt- he didn’t want to hurt again.

And it did

for a second

it hurt

but only for a moment,

And then it was gone. The bed was empty, but he still felt _okay_. The room, while overcrowded before, was just right now. Everything was fine.

Everything was okay.

(I promise I won’t leave you behind.

We’ll be together forever,

just as we should be.)

Drenched in water from the lake and standing at the rocky shore, her eyes were wide as she stared at him, stunned at seeing him not-hunched over and falling to the floor. He was fine, able to stand upright as he was any other day, could breathe normally.

He didn’t feel empty.

(See? I told you.)

She smiled, relief and delight bright in her eyes, and he returned it; but both of them knew of the wariness behind it.

* * *

Everything was wrong.

They- the loops- 

(Isn’t this what you wanted? For things to change? To go back to before the loops?)

Not like this.

He wasn’t sick anymore, but he knows he should be. He knows that the room is missing somebody, the other person is an intruder, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. _This isn’t okay._

(Yes, it is. Shut up, you don’t know any better.)

Not like this.

_Not like this._

He wasn’t complaining over the extra hours of work he could do now. He wasn’t complaining over being healthy.

This felt wrong. This felt like the script was being vandalized, not changed properly like he wanted, like it should have been. This felt like some stolen art repurposed for something else. A puzzle piece that fit the slot, but not the overall picture.

It was wrong. _Wrong,_ **_wrong,_ ** **_wrong_ **.

“Are you okay?” She asked him in the shelter. He took in a breath, and was unnerved when he realized he wasn’t trembling, or shaking in fear.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

At the sound of footsteps nearing, they had to separate.

Exiting the shelter, he thought he heard the demon laugh.

For his own sake, he chalked it up to walking right into a crowd, into the noise of the everyday; and not the escapee of the prison of an echo chamber.

* * *

True to her word, she didn’t leave him alone. She met him again at the tree, in a green shirt and the same black jacket, wearing a weary smile that made him feel warm in the chest (and broke his heart). When they got out of view of the townspeople, she pulled him in for a kiss. He kissed back.

When they pulled away, she kept him close still, holding his head in her hands and running a thumb through his hair. She muttered his name (though he couldn’t hear it clearly), and her eyes bore into his. “You know that I love you, right?” She asked him. Slowly, they pulled apart, and even now that he was standing tall straight again, her eyes remained on his, on him, waiting. His hands rested in hers.

“I know.”

That’s what he hated most.

They sit on top of the wall, like always. He cradles a glass bottle, feeling the sloshing of the chocolate milk at the bottom of the glass. They sit together, side-by-side, watching the sky burst into colors, one of each momentarily. Bursts of color form different images against the black, creeper heads and stars and flowers, shapes of different kinds being accompanied by cheers and laughter.

Her hand squeezes his, and he returns the gesture. Then he holds her close, pulling her by the shoulder and rubbing gently.

(He hates the feeling of finality in his gut.)

Beneath the welcome noise, he hears her murmur wistfully, entranced by the colors and the temporary relief, “They never stop being beautiful.”

He isn’t inclined to disagree.

(Temporary relief.

Cherish it.)

* * *

As shit as his memory was, he tried to remember everything. He tried to keep in mind the sound of her voice, her laughter; the look on her face when she’s happy, when she’s content; the look she has after they kiss. The words are beyond him, all their conversations; when they bonded over shared interests, bonded over loved ones lost; he couldn’t remember the specifics anymore, but…

But...

(...He tried.

He tried his best. Tried to let her know that he loved her, that there was no end to his feelings for her. That he would do anything for her, that if he could he would make the world perfect for her, just so that she wouldn't have to feel pain any longer. He held her and kissed her, made love to her and told her everyday, "I love you. I love you."

He needed her to understand, needed to get it all out, before he could tell her no longer.)

" _Ä̸͙̼̝̪̠̫̩̥̙̱͖̙́̔̒̇_ ị̴̧̡̟͌̽͌͛̀̄̋͑̊ **d̵̢̛̯̲̰̝͓̅͒͑͌̋** ~~ _e̴̢͔̯͈͕͎̞̤͈͒̃̌͋̔̋͊̆͊̎̓̿͝͝_~~ n̵̖̹̦͙̋̂̀̍͝?̵̘̖̰̝͇͕̘͎̈́̓̏̿̔̿̈̅͒̾͒͘̚͠"

He hears something like his name as the jukebox came to life with crinkling noise, and when he looks up, she’s held out a hand towards him, smiling brightly. “Wanna dance?”

Her eyes are gleaming, and her lips are curled, and he feels like he’s falling in love all over again.

He barely managed a small smile in return, and even though it hurt, he took her hand. “It’ll be a pleasure.”

They pulled each other close and stepped lightly, swaying quietly to the old song.

For once, the demon was silent.

* * *

The day of the temple raid is the worst day of his life.

During the confrontation, tears streak his face, darkening, fading; looking like he was made up of cracked porcelain. There are more hesitant looks on the faces of his opponents. In what manner, whether they were more or less scared of/for him, he couldn’t care less. None of them would understand.

(When she paused and asked him what was wrong, when he couldn’t say, she held him close and let him sob, and she held him for hours.

“Don’t pause anymore,” he begged and cried, “Please. I want to get this over with.”

She nods in understanding, but she doesn’t understand at all. She doesn’t understand at all.

She doesn’t-)

Everything is going far too slowly and far too quickly for him to comprehend. The hours between confrontations at the temple pass, and soon enough he’s thrown into the throne room along with his friends; and then he’s lying, making up stories, and the city is in his grip

and he’s ever closer to the edge.

They get arrested, this time. When he grabs her arm, he holds tight, and when he looks into her eyes he nearly breaks and crumbles when she sees the concern, the sadness; and he has to bite his lip and say his lines through grit teeth.

“We don’t have to do this,” she says to him gently, “We can work together and all go home.”

He mutters, “We can’t,” and leaves in a hurry.

His heart aches as he finds the empty prison cell. His heart aches as he tosses the spawn egg into the air like a toy. His heart aches as she barely dodges the egg. His heart aches when his former partner’s vice grip is on his hands, and their fingers are nearly intertwined, and the demon inside him growls with a fury and a breaking heart.

It gets worse as he pushes him with enough force for him to stumble and fall over the edge.

It hurts when he gets behind her and grips the cloth of her armor.

“I love you,” he says into her ear, loud and clear only for her; and then he raises a leg and kicks her into the abyss.

(But that wasn't enough to let her know.

You should have tried harder. Should have done better.)

He can’t bear to smile as he watches her fall into the void.

* * *

The thing about Sky City was that it was always cold.

So high up in the atmosphere, the clouds pass beneath them with waves of frozen air, never failing to send him into debilitating shivers and making his teeth chatter. It was much worse when he was sick, when his nerves exposed him to every sensation, when the biting winds cut through him like paper. As the city went up in flames, the rain fell hard; and the wind picked everything up and made them stronger, faster, larger, _harsher_. The air was humid, moist with dew and burning with fire and screams.

He can feel it all in the open space of the throne room.

It hurts.

**_It_ ** _hurts._

She comes back to it, a sword shining a bright bluish-purple in the dark, drawn and ready for battle.

And the fight ensues.

It screams and it cries, and the doll’s material grows weaker, spilling its guts and gears all over the floor as swords clash. Throwing a blaze unto the floor, it runs away, out into the rain, onto the slippery cobblestone.

Looking back, she’s already there, lit aglow by the enchanted sword in her hand, features highlighted by the crackling lightning. Her hair is wet and sticking to her frame from the rain, and drops of water fall down her golden-orange armor, falling like dew drops unto the crumbling stone.

“This was supposed to be my world, and you ruined it!”

You ruined it.

How could you?

~~_How could you love me?_ ~~

~~**_Why couldn’t you hate me like they did?_ ** ~~

(Quick. Before it’s too late.)

Their swords meet and clash like lightning, like fireworks, against the dark, black sky; like lines of bars along the dark of stone walls and shadows; like the brief flickers of fragile hope against the venta-black, lost to the waves of the nothing and light blue.

Once, she nearly missed.

Twice, she blocked a hit.

The third time, its world shattered with a loud, deafening, hum. The sound of a sword hitting nothing but air, flying through it and slicing the image into two; reducing the world around him into crumbs. The sky and the city and the mobs and the rain became _nothing_ , nothing to it as she slipped, and her face wore alarm and fear, and its heart broke.

“NO!”

Then she was falling, and her wide eyes stared at it in confusion and sadness with only one question: “Why?”

And it couldn’t answer, because it had none. No answer was good enough, there was no excuse for him, nothing that could spare him judgement or justice now.

She fell,

and then she was gone.

Her dark brown hair, the red in her bangs, framing her round face and her smile; her dark, wide eyes- were formless shapes, for but a second- then they were nothing.

_Nothing_.

She was in neither hell nor heaven, because neither truly existed. Because she had no _soul_ . All that was left of her - of **_Jesse_ ** , the real her - was just a memory, a memory of its that, if time were consistent, would be gone within years, because it couldn’t remember _anything_ . It couldn’t remember a childhood, it couldn’t remember a home before the Witherstorm, it couldn’t remember the original loop, and now it won’t remember **_her_ **.

It could do nothing else but stand there and stare uselessly at where she used to be. Where there used to be an imitation of a person was now just a void, an empty nothing that consumed the crumbling soil and stone, its tears and the typhoon rain. The cries of the monsters that roamed the air resonated with it, rumbling through the floating Earth with the screams of the residents and the war cries of heroes. It felt the ground quake, the cobblestone rippling, the ledge creaking.

Its vision was blurry with tears, and everything became... meaningless.

Nothing.

Just shapes and sounds with superficial definitions and signals. Just faraway things. Just assets in an imaginary world.

It fell on its knees, pathetically sobbing over its own mistakes. Its own decisions.

Another tremor in the air. Another crack through the breaking reality.

“Come now, brother.”

“No!”

It cried and desperately grabbed for anything, _anything_ , trying not to forget, trying to hold on forever, forever, forever-

“There’s no time to waste.”

Its fingers grasped nothing as everything shook, and the ledge fell apart, the cobble falling into the void and dropping the husk into the nothingness with it. It hugged itself, held the material of its leather jacket with a death grip, as tight as it could and held on; in a desperate, final, futile attempt to hold on to the past.

But its resolve was weak, its drive gone, its resistance nonexistent.

The door, before just a crack in the wall, was now wide open.

(I’m sorry.)

Then it went limp.

* * *

Sky City fell apart, slowly but surely, the pieces separating from the foundation and threatening to fall into the void. The people cried. The people screamed. The mobs that hunted them were mindless, and the Order that searched for their missing leader were frantic.

Everybody despaired.

One by one, each piece of the conjoined islands broke apart, until the city became an archipelago once again, drifting inch by inch as each second passed.

The rain fell, as did the mobs.

The fire rose, as did the demon; a monochromatic figure that shot up into the sky from the genuine void, like a star or a rocket, or a phoenix rising from the ashes. It glowed black and white at the same time, duality giving way to a seamless merge, a joining of two into one. It grinned maliciously, the rotten smile joining the cracks in the porcelain-like skin, the wither creeping through, the heavenly glow manifesting in its hands.

It laughed.

As the lightning turned into a crack, a tear, in the sky, the floodgates opened, and the archipelago, the people, the mobs, and the rain fell apart; becoming sucked in by the void, the whirlwind that consumed the air, the bodies, the souls, the code.

“We’re going home.”

The demon broke free from its prison, and relished in their achievement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and a happy new year
> 
> thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> **Number of Iterations: 117  
>  Total Number of Iterations (Approx.): 15,560**

**Author's Note:**

> insert elmo shrug gif here


End file.
